Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Tynemouth Corporation Bill [Lords].

As amended, considered; Amendments made.

Motion made, "That Standing Orders 240 and 262 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read the Third time."—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

King's Consent signified; Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

PUBLIC WORKS FACILITIES SCHEME (KINGSTON-UPON-HULL CORPORATION SUTTON ROAD BRIDGE) BILL,

"to confirm a Scheme made by the Minister of Transport under the Public Works Facilities Act, 1930, relating to the Kingston-upon-Hull Corporation," presented by Mr. Hore-Belisha; and ordered (under Section 1 (9) of the Act) to be considered To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 177.]

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

EXCHANGE OFFICIALS (CONDUCT).

Sir FRANK SANDERSON: 1.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware of the complaints from all classes of the community that officials at Employment Exchanges are lacking in helpfulness and courtesy to applicants; and whether, in view of the hardships suffered by the unemployed and the necessity for alleviating their conditions, he will instruct his officials to maintain such courtesy and efficiency in the fulfilment of their duties as are displayed by other branches of the Civil Service?

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Mr. Oliver Stanley): So far from such complaints being general, I think I am right in saying that the testimony of those who have personal dealings with Employment Exchange officials is that they maintain a high standard of courtesy and efficiency in their dealings with those who have occasion to use the Exchanges. If any complaint is made, it is at once investigated and should it be found to be justified—as I am glad to say is rarely the case—appropriate action is taken.

Sir F. SANDERSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman a ware that there are large numbers of cases in many parts of the country, including ex-officers, ex-public school boys, and workers of all classes, black-coated and otherwise, and will he take such steps as he may think necessary to ensure that courtesy is given to those who attend Employment Exchanges, and that they receive the same courtesy as is given in all branches of the Civil Service?

Mr. STANLEY: I am sure that courtesy is already given. I can only say that I think it is a pity that, if the hon. Member knows of instances of that kind, he did not bring them to my notice before asking the question, rather than after.

Sir F. SANDERSON: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I have brought this matter forward, appreciating the responsibility which devolves upon me in so doing and being satisfied that in giving ventilation to it on the Floor of the House it will do what is necessary?

Mr. STANLEY: I can only repeat that I think before my hon. Friend made general allegations of this kind against a very loyal and courteous body of civil servants, he should have produced the details of complaints, which might have been investigated.

STATUTORY COMMITTEE.

Mr. THORNE: 2.
asked the Minister of Labour the name of the chairman and the names of the other members of the Statutory Committee under Part I of the Unemployment Act; and what salary the chairman, the vice-chairman and the other members of the committee are to receive?

Mr. LAWSON: 3.
asked the Minister of Labour the names of the members of the Unemployment Statutory Insurance Com-
mittee; the respective salaries; and which of its members are to give full time to the post?

Mr. STANLEY: The members of the Unemployment Insurance Statutory Committee are:
Sir William H. Beveridge, K.C.B. (Chairman).
Mr. A. L. Ayre, O.B.E., J.P.
Mr. A. D. Besant, B.A., E.T.A. Captain the Right Hon. C. C. Craig, P.C. (Ire.), D.L.
Mr. Arthur Shaw, J.P.
Miss Katharine J. Stephenson, C.B.E., J.P.
Mrs. M. D. Stocks, B.Sc. (Econ.), J.P.
The chairman will receive a salary of £1,000 per annum, and the other members fees of five guineas for each day spent in attending a meeting, subject to a maximum of £500 in a year. No member will be required to give full time to the work of the committee.

Mr. THORNE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the committee will meet?

Mr. STANLEY: I cannot say when they will hold their first meeting, but the committee has already been appointed.

Mr. MAXTON: Has the right hon. Gentleman any objection to inquiring into the other resources of the members of the committee?

CINEMATOGRAPH FILM STUDIOS (ALIENS).

Mr. DORAN: 5.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware of the discontent among artistes, technicians, artisans, etc., employed in British film studios, through the introduction of aliens, mainly exiles from Germany; on what grounds his Department recommends the granting of permits to these persons; whether he will state the names of the parties who made application for such services; and, as plenty of British labour is available for the work, will he take immediate steps to cancel these permits in order to avoid trouble between British and alien labour?

Mr. STANLEY: I have no evidence of such discontent and the suggestion that these permits, which in total are quite few, are mainly issued to Germans is quite incorrect. The film company is re-
quired to make application in each case and to show that the introduction of an alien is necessary. If these permits were cancelled, as my hon. Friend suggests, the result might well be not to increase but to reduce the amount of employment available for British workers.

Mr. DORAN: Has the right hon. Gentleman personally investigated, or caused to be investigated, the real reason for the discontent prevailing in the studio. I have investigated—

HON. MEMBERS: Order!

Mr. STANLEY: Perhaps the hon. Member will give me the results of his investigations.

WIFE'S ALLOWANCE.

Mr. HENDERSON STEWART: 7.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that the regulations of his Department, paragraphs 189 and 190, L.O. Code 7, provide that if the wife of an unemployed man advertises for summer lodgers she is automatically disallowed benefit whether in fact she has succeeded in obtaining lodgers or not; and whether, in view of the hardship caused by this rule, be will consider amending the regulations so that where it is proved that no lodgers were kept the wife's allowance will be restored?

Mr. STANLEY: The effect of these paragraphs is not correctly given in the question. Cases of the kind described are not automatically disallowed, but are referred to the insurance officer for his decision whether they are to be allowed or are to be referred to a court of referees. The ultimate decision depends, not on regulations, but on the provisions of the Acts themselves. I am sending my hon. Friend a copy of a leading decision of the Umpire bearing on the matter.

Mr. STEWART: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the official to whom he refers in one particular town acts upon decision of the Umpire and upon that decision has disallowed benefit in this particular case, although in fact no lodgers have been taken by the woman?

Mr. STANLEY: I cannot answer without particulars of the individual case, but a claim can only be disallowed by the court of referees.

TRANSITIONAL PAYMENTS.

Mr. LAWSON: 8.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that many single unemployed men in Durham who have hitherto received full transitional allowance are now receiving an addition of 9d.; whether this is the maximum amount for single men; and why the 10 per cent. has not been restored to such men?

Mr. STANLEY: I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to the hon. Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey) on 9th July. The amounts set out in the basis of need laid down by the Commissioners are not hard and fast, but may be modified to meet the needs of any individual case, provided that the unemployment benefit rates are not exceeded.

Mr. LAWSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, so far as one can learn from personal investigation and also from resolutions received, the practice referred to is going on, and that men below 50 years of age who are receiving the full amount of unemployment pay get 9d. instead of is. 9d., while men above 50 years of age get more generous consideration? Can he take steps to see that, as far as possible, the 10 per cent. is restored to the men, at least to the people who are receiving the maximum amount?

Mr. STANLEY: As I said in answer to a previous question, the general effect of the new scale is to add rather more than 10 per cent. to the cost of transitional payments.

Mr. LAWSON: Seeing that the Commissioner in Durham is in a special position compared with other parts of the country, can the right hon. Gentleman take steps to see that, as far as possible, those in receipt of the maximum amount will at least receive the benefit of the 10 per cent., which they are not getting at the present time?

Mr. STANLEY: Perhaps the hon. Member will put a question down on that point. I cannot answer now with certainty, but I do not think that it is within my power to do what he suggests.

Mr. PIKE: Is the Minister aware that the same circumstances do not exist at Rotherham, where there is also a Commissioner?

Captain Sir WILLIAM BRASS: Are not certain local authorities, in effect, giving the 10 per cent., and would it not be possible to have some uniformity in this matter?

Mr. BATEY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say why this distinction should be made and why single unemployed men get 16s. instead of 17s.?

Mr. STANLEY: The Commissioner, in the exercise of his discretion, has drawn up a scale, the general effect of which is to provide for more than the 10 per cent. increase.

Mr. LAWSON: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I give notice that I shall raise this matter on the first possible opportunity.

4. Mr. DENVILLE: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that the public assistance committee of the corporation of Newcastle-on-Tyne have declared it is illegal to pay 26s. per week transitional benefit under any circumstances; and will he take steps to ensure the same interpretation of the legal position in both the counties of Northumberland and Durham?

Mr. STANLEY: I am not aware of such a declaration, and I have no grounds for believing that the authorities referred to are unaware of their legal powers and duties in respect of the administration of transitional payments.

Mr. DENVILLE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that on one side of the river 26s. is paid and on the other side 24s., and will he state why the Newcastle Corporation say they are not legally entitled to do the same as is done on the other side of the river?

Mr. STANLEY: If my hon. Friend will refer to the answer which I gave to the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) on 5th July, he will see the legal position set out.

Mr. BUCHANAN: In view of the fact that within a short distance two people in exactly the same circumstances, and living in practically the same locality, are receiving different amounts, does not the right hon. Gentleman think that he should takes steps, while recognising the legal position, to influence the local authorities to see that both persons are treated alike?

Mr. STANLEY: The hon. Member will realise that I have no power in this matter.

Mr. BU CHANAN: Has the right hon. Gentleman not the power in these circumstances to call the two local authorities together and get them to see common sense in the matter?

Mr. STANLEY: It depends on the discretion of the local authorities, who are answerable for their actions to the ratepayers in their own districts.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Is it not possible, in view of the wide dissatisfaction in the area for the Minister or one of his departmental officials to call a conference and get the two authorities to adopt common sense views?

Sir W. BRASS: Surely the Minister is aware that the money comes from the Treasury and not from local funds?

Mr. LAWSON: Is the Minister not aware that the cause of this is the statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and also by the Minister of Labour, which has led people in the country to believe that 10 per cent. would automatically accrue to them?

Ex-SERVICE DISABLED MEN.

Captain Sir IAN FRASER: 9.
asked the Minister of Labour whether, in view of the fact that the concession to disabled ex-service men that the first £1 of disability pension would be left out of account when assessing their incomes under the means test cannot become operative until the new board is set up under the Unemployment Act, he will remind public assistance authorities of the circular issued by his predecessor in 1931 and of a number of statements subsequently made on behalf of his Department, the effect of which was that such authorities might at their discretion increase payments to disabled men on account of their disability above the normal; and will he invite them to consider taking this action at their discretion so that any hardship may be alleviated forthwith?

Mr. STANLEY: Public Assistance Authorities were informed in a circular of 24th November, 1932, issued from my Department, that where in any case the nature of the disability is such as to involve extra expenditure and calls for a
greater measure of assistance than would otherwise be appropriate, the authority may properly take such special need into consideration in determining the amount of transitional payments to be allowed in any case. I have no reason to suppose that authorities need to be reminded by any further circular of their powers and duties in the matter.

Sir IAN FRASER: In view of the special circumstances which have arisen owing to the expectation given to these men and the necessary delay which has occurred in bringing it into full activity, will the right hon. Gentleman consider reminding these authorities of their powers?

Mr. STANLEY: If there is any necessity to remind authorities of their powers probably the object has been achieved by the question of the hon. and gallant Member and the answer.

CARPET FACTORIES, BELGIUM (LABOUR CONDITIONS).

Sir JOHN WARDLAW - MILNE: 6.
asked the Minister of Labour if he has any information as to what wages are paid and hours worked in the carpet factories of Belgium; and whether any special conditions for employment therein are laid down by the Belgian Government?

Mr. STANLEY: As the reply is somewhat long, I will, if I may, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REORT.

Following is the reply:

I regret that information is not available as to the wages paid in carpet factories in Belgium: so far as I am aware, no information on this subject has been published by the Belgian Government, or by the International Labour Office, in recent years. The hours of labour of workpeople employed in such factories are restricted by Statute to eight a day and 48 a week, subject to the provision that in cases of exceptional and unforeseen pressure of work authorisations to work extended hours, not exceeding two hours a day for a maximum period of three months in a year, may be granted by the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, after agreement between the employers and workers; the available information indicates, however, that such authorisations are only sparingly granted.

I have no information as to any special conditions laid down by the Belgian Government in regard to employment in carpet factories, other than those dealing with such subjects as the minimum age for employment, night-work for women and children, weekly rest day, and payment of compulsory family allowances, which are applicable to industry generally.

BATA FACTORIES, TILBURY.

Mr. T. SMITH: 10.
asked the Minister of Labour how many aliens have been granted permits for employment at the factory of Messrs. Bata at Tilbury; what number of such permits have terminated; and what number are still in operation?

Mr. STANLEY: Permission has been granted for the employment of 28 aliens at the Bata factories at Tilbury. Four permissions have terminated; the number in operation at present is 24.

Mr. SMITH: Can the right hon. Gentleman say why these permits were given? Is there a dearth of labour in this country?

Mr. STANLEY: These are permits granted to special men who are brought over here in order to train labour in this country.

Captain CAZALET: Is it not the case that a similar number of English people are employed in a factory in Czechoslovakia as a result of this arrangement?

Mr. KIRKWOOD: Is it not the case that there are many people in the boot and shoe industry who are unemployed, and why is it necessary to bring in these foreigners?

Mr. STANLEY: I understand that this firm has a particular process, and it is necessary to bring over skilled men to teach British labour here how to use this process. These permits are only for a limited time.

Mr. McENTEE: 11.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to excessive hours being worked by juveniles at the factory of Messrs. Bata, of Tilbury; and whether he will take steps to see that the law in this respect is observed and the health of the work-people thereby protected?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir John Gilmour): I have received a report showing that the normal hours at these works are 7.30 to 5.30 with no Saturday employment. Some of the employes have been working longer, but apparently within legal limits. In one or two instances there have been irregularities but these were not serious and the firm have promised to see that they are not allowed to occur again.

Oral Answers to Questions — POLICE.

PENSIONERS.

Mr. McENTEE: 12.
asked the Home Secretary whether he will furnish a statement showing the number of ex-police officers in receipt of pensions other than war pensions; the average amount of pension per head; and the number of such pensioners who are in paid employment while in receipt of their pensions?

Sir J. GILMOUR: The number of retired members of police forces in England and Wales in receipt of police pensions on 31st March, 1934, was 35,184, and the average pension was about £150. I have no information as to the number who have obtained employment since they retired.

DISCIPLINARY CASES.

Mr. THORNE: 15.
asked the Home Secretary whether the seven members of the Metropolitan police force, including two sergeants, who were suspended from duty in the East End of London have been reinstated; and whether the policemen in question had any of their pay stopped?

Sir J. GILMOUR: The Commissioner of Police informs me that the sergeant and six constables referred to have all been reinstated. Four of the constables who were found guilty of the offences with which they had been charged were not paid for part of the period of suspension.

UNIFORM.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: 16.
asked the Home Secretary whether, seeing that owing to the weight of the cloth of which the uniforms are, made the police suffer in hot weather, he will arrange either to clothe them in drill or thin blue cloth or permit them to dispense with their tunics and wear a white shirt when
on duty during the heat wave, whereby they would be cooler and more visible in traffic?

Sir J. GILM0UR: As regards the Metropolitan Police, I have nothing to add to my previous replies. Elsewhere the matter is within the discretion of the chief constable.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Is it not the case that a policeman's uniform is exactly the same in summer as in winter; that there is a total disregard of climatic conditions?

Sir J. GILMOUR: No, Sir; that is not the case. There are two kinds of uniform.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Will the right hon. Gentleman examine the cloth which policemen are now wearing as I have done? It is about three times the consistency of the cloth any hon. Member in this House, other than myself, is wearing?

Mr. HOLFORD KNIGHT: Will the right hon. Gentleman make inquiries in the provinces as to what arrangements are made there during the hot weather to help the police in the performance of their heavy duties?

Sir J. GILMOUR: As I have already explained in my previous answer, in the case of excessive hot or cold weather measures are taken to clothe the police according to the circumstances.

Mr. KNIGHT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the unfavourable impression created in London by the uncomfortable clothing worn in hot weather by the police?

BRITISH UNION OF FASCISTS.

Mr. VYVYAN ADAMS: 13.
asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that a document containing a black list of certain anti-Fascists has been compiled by the Blackshirts; that the Blackshirt movement is active among the armed forces of the Crown, and that a list of certain recommended weapons is included in the same document; and what action, if any, he proposes?

Sir J. GILMOUR: I have no information regarding any such document, but I shall be glad to consider any information
which is in the possession of my hon. Friend.

Mr. ADAMS: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen the report in the "Daily Telegraph" of a speech delivered last Sunday by the Secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, and will Mr. Marchbank, in the public interest, be required either to repudiate or to substantiate those allegations?

Sir J. GILMOUR: I have not seen it.

SHOPS ACTS (CLOSING ORDERS, EXMOUTH).

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: 14.
asked the Home Secretary whether, in regard to the closing orders adopted by the Exmouth Local Authority, under the Shops Acts, he is satisfied that those orders are being enforced?

Sir J. GILMOUR: The local authority responsible for making and enforcing Orders under the Shops Acts in the Exmouth district is the Devon County Council. I am informed by the council that the Orders are duly enforced in this area, and that during the last two years they have received no complaint, but that they understand that a complaint addressed to the Exmouth Urban District Council is about to be sent on to them. This complaint will be investigated in due course and I will communicate with the hon. Member when I learn the result.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION.

SECONDARY SCHOOL ACCOMMODATION, SALTBURN.

Lieut.-Commander BOWER: 17.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education whether he is aware that parents of the girls at the Saltburn High School, Yorkshire, have received notice that certain middle-school forms will stay at home on given dates in order to provide adequate accommodation for examinations; and whether he is satisfied that the secondary education facilities in the vicinity are adequate?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Ramsbotham): The answer to both parts of the question is in the affirmative.

Lieut.-Commander BOWER: Is not this a clear indication that the secondary education facilities in this area are not sufficient, and is the hon. Member aware that the neighbouring area, with a growing population of over 60,000, is utterly unprovided for in this respect and that local feeling runs rather high?

Mr. RAMSBOTHAM: These temporary arrangements only occur on two days in the year, and I do not think that they justify additional accommodation. The North Riding of Yorkshire is the responsible authority, and they are satisfied that a new school is not justified at present.

Lieut.-Commander BOWER: Is the hon. Member aware that the North Riding education authority continually blames the Board of Education for a lack of educational facilities?

SCHOOL HOLIDAYS.

Sir F. SANDERSON: 18.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education whether, in view of the numbers of families who take their annual holiday in August on account of the school holidays and the consequent congestion and high cost of accommodation at seaside resorts during that month, he will consider closing all elementary schools during July in order to relieve the position and also with a view to giving to children under 14 years of age the benefit of a holiday during a month with longer hours of daylight?

Mr. RAMSBOTHAM: The fixing of school holidays is a matter which lies within the discretion of the local education authorities. It is already the practice of a number of authorities to adjust the school holidays to local needs.

Mr. MAXTON: Does not the operation of school holidays by local authorities depend on the insistence of the Department that schools shall have a certain number of openings in the year; and will the hon. Member consider now whether the number of openings required should not be substantially reduced?

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING.

FINANCIAL PROVISIONS ACT.

Mr. GORDON MACDONALD: 21.
asked the Minister of Health whether he has considered the communications sent from urban district councils calling his
attention to the failure of private enterprise to provide an adequate supply of homes under the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act, 1933, to be let at rents payable by the working class; and, in view of the widespread desire that the Government should introduce such financial assistance as will enable local authorities to build this type of house, what action he intends to take?

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Sir Hilton Young): I have received and considered certain communications of the kind described by the hon. Member in the question. As regards the remainder of the question I would refer the hon. Member to my observations in the course of the recent Debate upon the Estimates of my Department.

Mr. MACD0NALD: In any further legislation dealing with this matter, will the Minister of Health bear in mind the fact that many miners are earning less than 5s. per day?

Sir H. YOUNG: The hon. Member will find these matters considered when the legislation is introduced.

STATISTICS.

Captain CAZALET: 25.
asked the Minister of Health whether he can give the House any further information in regard to the statistics which he proposes to publish, showing the number of houses built and the number of slum dwellings demolished during recent months; and whether he will issue such figures to the Press at regular intervals?

Sir H. YOUNG: The statistics will be tabulated in a half-yearly return dealing with house production and slum clearance. For details I am afraid I must ask my hon. and gallant Friend to await -the publication of the return which, as I have already stated, will be issued as soon as possible after the end of September.

Captain CAZALET: Would my right hon. Friend consider publishing some figures, if not all, every quarter, instead of twice a year, so that the country may know the very substantial progress that is being made in these matters?

Sir H. YOUNG: In fact, very close consideration has been given to that question, but it has been found that the labour involved by more frequent publi-
cation would not be justified, in view of the results. The half-yearly returns will probably give a sufficiently close view of the situation.

Mr. THORNE: Will that half-yearly return contain figures as to the number of houses that have been built for letting and not for sale?

Sir H. YOUNG: I must ask hon. Members to await the actual details in the return when it is published. It will deal with house production.

Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMS: Will the figures include houses that have been demolished because they are worn out, though not part of a slum clearance scheme?

Sir H. YOUNG: I am not sure to what class of houses my hon. Friend refers.

Mr. MAXTON: Could the right hon. Gentleman not do something with the films in this matter?

NATIONAL HOUSING COMMITTEE (REPORT).

Mr. GROVES: 28.
asked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been called to the Report of the National Housing Committee in which it is stated that the attitude of the Treasury seems to have been governed by the view that the need for subsidies for the housing of the workers was temporary, and that the Treasury has been concerned rather to limit the commitments of the national Exchequer in relation to housing than to consider the best financial methods of carrying through a national housing scheme; and what action does he propose to take to put into operation the recommendations of this committee?

Sir H. YOUNG: I am aware of the report referred to. I do not at all accept the statement quoted from that document or that it represents accurately the attitude of His Majesty's Government or of any Department of Government.

Mr. GROVES: As this report has been circulated not only to Members of Parliament but to the public generally, if the right hon. Gentleman does not accept the findings, will he make some representation to them, or may we assume that the view of the Ministry is that the National Housing Committee does not know what it is talking about?

Sir H. YOUNG: The prospect opened up by the hon. Member's suggestion that there should be an immediate refutation of every document circulated by a private authority is a very formidable one.

CONTRIBUTORY PENSIONS ACT.

Mr. GROVES: 22.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that in connection with claims for widows', orphans' and old age contributory pensions his Departmental notes request that the claim numbers shall be quoted in communications; whether he is aware that embarrassment is caused to aged people, inasmuch as the claim numbers exceed 27 millions; and whether he will give instructions that simpler numbers are used?

Sir H. YOUNG: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative; as regards the second and third parts, the pension number serves three purposes, namely, to denote a particular pensioner, to show the week of the year in which a new order book is issuable, and to show the week and year in which the pensioner will attain the age of 70, when the charge for the pension has to be transferred from the Pensions Account to the Vote for Old Age Pensions. This greatly facilitates the use of machines for recurring operations, and the advantage to the pensioners themselves of the virtually automatic renewal of their pensions far outweighs any slight disadvantage which the use of necessarily long numbers may involve.

Mr. GROVES: While the reply has nothing at all to do with the question on the Paper, I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman, with special reference to the question, why these forms have been issued? They contain eight figures and are, therefore, a source of embarrassment to aged people. They are written, not typed. If they were typed they would be more easy to decipher. Will the right hon. Gentleman not consider that these forms are an embarrassment to old people?

Sir H. YOUNG: The hon. Member's supplementary question really satisfies me that the answer was most relevant to the question. I apologise for the length of the reply, but, if the hon. Member will consider it, I think he will find that it meets his point.

Oral Answers to Questions — PUBLIC HEALTH.

DEAF AND DUMB PERSONS.

Mr. CAPORN: 23.
asked the Minister of Health how many county or county borough councils have applied for permission to contribute towards the support and maintenance of institutions for deaf and dumb persons; and whether he can state the names of such councils, and, in each case, the amount of the proposed subscription, and the action taken by him in connection with such application?

Sir H. YOUNG: Thirty county or county borough councils have applied during the past year for my consent to the payment of subscriptions to missions for the deaf and dumb, and I understand that at least nine other councils are paying annual subscriptions to such missions. I will send my hon. Friend a statement giving the names of the councils and the amounts of the subscriptions, and showing what action has been taken on each application. In those cases in which sanction has not yet been given to the proposed subscriptions, I am making further inquiries, as I am not at present satisfied that the Councils in question have given adequate consideration to the needs of the missions in respect of the placement of deaf and dumb persons in employment.

24. Mr. CAPORN: asked the Minister of Health whether he is satisfied that local authorities are making as wide a use of the powers provided under Section 67 (6) of the Poor Law Act, 1930, as is desirable in the public interest; whether he has received adequate response to his Circular No. 1,337, dated 22nd May, 1933; and whether he will consider the desirability of extending the provisions of Sections 2, 3 and 4 of the Blind Persons Act, 1920, to deaf and dumb persons?

Sir H. YOUNG: The answer to the first two parts of the question is in the negative. I am, however, taking action with a view to securing closer attention by the local authorities to the suggestions made in the 'Circular mentioned by my hon. Friend, and as at present advised I do not consider that fresh legislation on the lines he suggests is desirable.

Mr. CAPORN: In those cases in which my right hon. Friend has not received
any application, will he communicate with the local authority concerned and again draw their attention to the circular?

Sir H. YOUNG: In cases in which 1 am not satisfied as to the adequacy of the action there is further communication.

IMPORTED EGGS.

Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: 26.
asked the Minister of Health whether he has any information to show that the United States of America, or any other countries, prohibit the importation of liquid eggs on grounds of health; and whether he will consider prohibiting their importation to this country on these grounds

Sir H. YOUNG: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. Liquid eggs imported into this country and intended for food must be free from preservatives and fit for human consumption, and, subject to those conditions, I am not aware of any reason for prohibiting their importation on grounds of public health.

Lieut.-Colonel AC LAND - TROYTE,: Will my right hon. Friend further consider this matter and carefully examine it to make sure that these eggs are not injurious to health? Fresh eggs are better.

Sir H. YOUNG: I am sure that fresh eggs are very preferable, but the point of concern at the moment is as to what precautions are taken to ensure that eggs are fit for human consumption.

Brigadier-General CLIFTON BROWN: Has my right hon. Friend's attention been drawn, to the manufacture of slab cake, one of the chief ingredients of which is Chinese liquid eggs, and will he see that a decent standard of what is fit for human consumption is required?

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Is not the Ministry standard of what is fit for human consumption a very low one, and is not that evidenced by the fact that dyed herring are allowed to take the place of properly smoked kippers?

WATER SUPPLIES, GLAMORGAN.

Mr. EDWARD WILLIAMS: 27.
asked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the distressed condition of Glamorgan,
he is prepared to reconsider the recommended grant to the Mid-Glamorgan Water Board in order to facilitate the provision of water schemes within their rural area?

Sir H. YOUNG: In assessing the grant for this scheme account has been taken of the local conditions and needs. The grant provisionally allocated is equivalent to one-quarter of the deficiency, and after allowance is made for contributions from the County Council and the Rural District Councils, the burden on the rates of the parishes served will be small.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Does the right hon. Gentleman not realise that the sum of £44,000 is rather too heavy for a local authority like this, a local Water Board?

Sir H. YOUNG: I think the hon. Member's question really shows the difficulty of considering all the aspects of such an application in the form of question and answer. That amount has been considered in relation to the needs of the locality.

HISTORY OF PARLIAMENT (PUBLICATION).

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 29.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether His Majesty's Government will undertake the printing and publication of the history of the institution and personnel of Parliament which is being prepared under the direction of a Committee consisting of Members of both Houses?

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Chamberlain): I have been assured by the Committee in question that the proposed history will not involve a net charge on public funds, and with the object of assisting this undertaking I have agreed on behalf of the Government to the following arrangement, which is accepted by the Committee as satisfactory and likely to produce the results required. Provided that there is secured beforehand from sources other than public funds a minimum sum of £15,000 towards the cost of compiling the history, the Government, while they cannot pledge Parliament or future administrations to a continuing expenditure of public money, will be prepared for their part to authorise the publica-
tion, and placing on sale, by the Stationery Office at the public cost of volumes of the history up to a maximum number, varying, proportionately with the amount collected, from 20, if only the minimum sum is secured, up to the total of 40 if £30,000 is secured.
It is anticipated by the Committee that receipts from sales, which will be credited to the Stationery Office Vote, will cover the cost of publication. It is understood that the Government cannot take any responsibility for raising the above sums but I am sure that there will be a general hope that the Committee may be successful in their efforts.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman, may I ask my hon. Friends in this House to help? It is a great honour.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

MOTOR-CAR IMPORTS.

Mr. LIDDALL: 30.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the value of the motor-cars imported during the first six months of this yeas amounted to £716,937, approximately double the value imported in the same period of 1933 and nearly four times the value imported in the same period of 1932; and what steps he proposes to take to deal with the growing threat to the British motor-car, industry?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I am aware of the figures of the importation of motorcars to which my hon. Friend refers, but I would draw his attention to the fact that the importations of parts and accessories of motor-cars have substantially declined since 1932. The duty on motorcars, in common with other Budget duties, will come up for review in the ordinary course before the next Budget, and all relevant considerations, including those to which my hon. Friend has drawn attention, will be borne in mind.

MERCHANDISE MARKS (SPORTING CARTRIDGE CASES).

Sir BASIL PETO: 47.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that sporting cartridge cases are being imported into this country unmarked, subsequently stamped with a fictitious name and address purporting to
be that of a British firm, and the sporting ammunition in these cases when exported actually receives the drawback as being British products; what reply has been given to the application under the Merchandise Marks Act for the universal marking of all imported foreign cartridge cases with the country of origin; and what steps he proposes to take to stop this evasion of the Merchandise Marks Act?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Dr. Burgin): I am aware that sporting cartridge cases are being imported unmarked and that, after loading, the cartridges are sold bearing the names of British firms; but my attention has not been called to any case in which the name is fictitious. There is no reason to suppose that a drawback of duty is allowed otherwise than in accordance with the appropriate Treasury Order. For reasons which have been explained in answers to previous questions on this subject the application which has been made for a Marking Order is not one which the Board of Trade are able to refer to the Merchandise Marks Committee.

Sir B. PETO: May I ask how, in the absence of an Order being made under the Merchandise Marks Act, the public in this country who wish to buy British sporting cartridges can possibly know whether, if they are buying cartridges loaded by any of the firms controlled by the Imperial Chemical Industries Company, those cartridges are in cases which have come from foreign countries?

Dr. BURGIN: Any member of the British public who desires to buy British cartridges can specify the name of the proprietary article he desires to buy.

Sir B. PETO: How is the British purchaser to know, even when he takes that precaution, in view of the present state of the trade in these foreign imported cartridge cases, that he will get a cartridge which is British right through, even to the case?

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: As the sale of a foreign article bearing the name of a British trader is an offence under the existing law, under the last Merchandise Marks Act, will the Board of Trade institute a prosecution, as they have the power to do?

Dr. BURGIN: I think my hon. Friend is under a misapprehension. The article imported from abroad, if I understand the matter aright, is the blank cartridge case. That cartridge case is then filled in this country with the ammunition, wads, and so on. A very large percentage of the value of the finished article is thus British, and the name of the manufacturer put on the finished article is not put on the article imported from abroad at all. [HON. MEMBERS: "It is."] Will hon. Members allow me first to finish my sentence? I am advised that the putting by the manufacturer of the name on a filled cartridge is not the application of the word "British" to an imported foreign article, and in this connection it is quite impossible to treat cartridge cases on any different footing from any other material which goes to make up a finished article. There is a regular procedure under the Merchandise Marks Act, and unless that procedure is followed in connection with cartridge blanks it is not possible for the Board of Trade to intervene?

Sir B. PETO: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that the cap on the case is included in the cartridge case?

AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY.

Mr. LIDDALL: 49.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can now say when steps will be taken to afford further protection to the agricultural machinery industry, having regard to the fact that the tonnage of the imports in the first half of this year is over 60 per cent. greater than in the same period of last year?

Dr. BURGIN: I fear that there is nothing I can add to the reply which I gave to my hon. Friend on the 8th May.

EXPORT CREDITS (GERMANY).

Sir PARK GOFF: 57.
asked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether any of the bills accepted by German nationals for British exports, and guaranteed under the export credits scheme, are in default?

Lieut.-Colonel J. COLVILLE (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): It is not the practice to give information about
individual countries or firms, but I can inform by hon. Friend that while, in the ordinary course, a certain number of bills on foreign buyers of British goods are unpaid from time to time, including buyers in Germany, there has not been any abnormal increase in Germany in recent times.

IMPORTED CLOCKS.

Sir GIFFORD FOX (for Mr. LENNOX-BOYD): 31.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the number of clocks imported into this country has increased from 715,955 in the first six months of 1932 to 1,528,769 in the first six months of 1934; and what steps he proposes to take to protect further the British clock-making industry?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I am aware of the increase in imports of clocks referred to in the first part of the question. As regards the latter part, I would remind my hon. Friend that the duties on most clocks are governed by the trade agreement with Germany concluded in April, 1933.

DENTAL, SURGICAL AND MEDICAL INSTRUMENTS.

Sir G. FOX (for Mr. LENNOXBOYD): 51.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the imports of dental, surgical, medical and veterinary instruments and appliances (except optical) have increased from £163,813 in the first half of 1932 to £215,250 in the first half of 1933, and to £247,022 in the first half of 1934; and what further steps he proposes to take to protect the British industry manufacturing these scientific goods?

Dr. BURGIN: I am aware of the facts to which my hon. Friend draws attention. Any question of an increase in the duty on these goods must be dealt with by the ordinary procedure under the Import Duties Act.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: Is it not the case that a considerable proportion of these goods are dutiable under the Safeguarding of Industries Act, 1921, as extended by the Finance Act of 1926, and that accordingly no application can be made
to the Import Duties Advisory Committee?

Dr. BURGIN: No, Sir. According to my information, that applies to very few of the goods in question.

SISAL.

Sir G. FOX (for Mr. LENNOXBOYD): 52.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the fact that the price of sisal imported into this country is round about £15 a ton, and that binder twine made from it is sold to farmers at a cost of £33 per ton; and whether he is satisfied that this high price for the manufactured article is justified?

Dr. BURGIN: I have no official information on this subject, but I understand that the difference between the prices quoted by my hon. Friend is mainly due to the cost of converting sisal into binder twine.

FOREIGN LOANS (RESTRICTIONS).

Captain ARCHIBALD RAMSAY: 32.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will consider the possibility of relaxing the present restrictions on foreign lending?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I am glad of the opportunity to make a short statement. In the first place, I should like to convey my thanks to the authorities concerned, more particularly those of the London Stock Exchange for the manner in which they have invariably striven to give effect to my wishes. I should like to point out also, if I may, that the actual amount or foreign lending at the present time would in no circumstances be great and that it is easy to form exaggerated views as to the effect of the embargo. As regards the future, I am satisfied that it would not be in the public interest that the existing restrictions should be removed at the present time. But under present conditions I should be ready to consider particular cases especially those falling under the following heads:

(a) Sterling issues by a country within the sterling bloc where the loan is required to increase the sterling assets of that country and so to minimise fluctuations in the exchanges.
1261
(b) Sterling issues on behalf of any borrower where the proceeds are calculated mainly to produce direct benefit to British industry.

Mr. THORNE: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of putting into his next Budget a rather heavy tax upon foreign loans.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I am afraid I cannot anticipate the next Budget.

The following are particulars of (a) grants (including
subsidies) for local and other services as shown in the Estimates presented to Parliament since
October, 1931; (b) guarantees given or provided for under legislation passed since
October, 1931; and (c) issues from the Consolidated Fund under legislation passed since
October, 1931.


(A) Grants (including subsidies) for local and other services
Since October,1931.


—
Supplementary votes, November, 1931, to March, 1932.
1932–33.
1933–34.
1934–35 (Original estimates and supplementary estimates presented to
date).*



£
£
£
£


Exchequer Contributions to local revenues
—
45,146
45,311
45,354


Education (excluding teachers' pensions)
—
49,110
47,788
49,319


Education (including Land Settlement grants and loans, Development Fund, Beet Sugar Subsidy
and Milk).
—
49,110
47,788
49,319


Fisheries
—
—
—
54


Health services
—
162
149
152


Housing
—
15,263
15,691
16,016


Rural water supplies
—
—
—
210


Police
—
11,182
11,309
11,721


Road Fund
—
2,750
—
—


Unemployment Grants and Loans (including Development Grants).
—
4,150
5,400
5,150


Empire Marketing Fund
—
320
250
—


Colonial Development Fund
—
700
400
500


Other Foreign and Imperial Grants
35
1,176
3,206
2,955


Grants for Scientific and Industrial Research.
—
61
93
132


Light Horse Breeding
—
12
—
5


Light Horse Breeding
—
12
—
5


Mechanical Transport
—
8
3
1


Civil Aviation
—
385
402
432


Miscellaneous
—
545
560
682



35
135,167
135,697
139,882


* The sums shown for 1934–35 have not yet been voted in
Committee of Supply.

GOVERNMENT GRANTS, LOANS, AND GUARANTEES.

Mr. BATEY: 33.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he can give separately the amounts of money voted by this House as subsidies, grants, guarantees, or loans since October, 1931?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Duff Cooper): As the answer is necessarily in tabular form, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

INDUSTRIAL ASSURANCE.

Mr. LECKIE: 34.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether any early legislation may be expected for the better regulation of industrial assurance; and whether the Government will consider the setting up of a national scheme under Government control?

Mr. COOPER: The Report of the Committee on Industrial Assurance is still under consideration and I am not in a position to say when action will be taken on it, or what that action will be.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE.

HORSES (GRASS SICKNESS).

Lieut.-Colonel MOORE: 35.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether any preventive for grass sickness in horses is known at the present time; and, if not, whether any steps are being taken by his Department to evolve such a preventive?

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Elliot): The causal factor of grass sickness is unknown and no preventive agent can yet be recommended. Research on this subject is being conducted at the Moredun Animal Diseases Research Institute, near Edinburgh, the institute most conveniently situated to the areas in which the condition is most prevalent.

CATTLE (SLAUGHTERING SYSTEM).

Mr. LECKIE: 36.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he has now come to a decision on the suggested establishment of regional schemes for the slaughtering of animals as recommended in the report of the Reorganisation Commission for fat stock?

Mr. ELLIOT: As indicated in the statement on the livestock situation, which I made to the House on 11th July last, the long-term plan favoured by the Government envisages a reform of the slaughtering system, but I am not at present in a position to make any further statement on the subject.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: Do I understand that the right hon. Gentleman is not committed to the abolition of private slaughter-houses in rural areas?

Mr. ELLIOT: I am not committed in any way.

EGGS (IMPORTS).

Sir JOSEPH LAMB: 37.
asked the Minister of Agriculture what action has been, or is proposed to be, taken in regard to countries which, during the 15 weeks ended 30th June, have largely exceeded the quantity of eggs exported by them to this country in the corresponding period last year; and whether he is satisfied that the aggregate quantity of foreign eggs imported between 15th March and 14th September will not exceed that imported last year?

Lieut.-Colonel ACLANDTROYTE: 38 and 39.
asked the Minister of Agriculture (1) whether he is aware of the serious condition of the poultry industry caused largely by the importation of cheap foreign eggs and eggs in shell; and whether he proposes to take any further action to help this industry before the Recess;
(2) whether he is aware that imports of eggs from Poland were higher during June, 1934, than during June, 1933, and that the imports from several foreign countries were higher during the first six months of 1934 than during the similar period in 1933 in spite of the voluntary restriction agreed to; and whether he proposes to take any further steps to reduce imports of eggs?

Mr. ELLIOT: Since the arrangement proposed by His Majesty's Government in March last, for a standstill in imports of eggs in shell, applied to the period of six months to 14th September next, no special significance should be attached in this connection to the figures of imports in June or in the first six months of 1934. Imports from some countries in the first. 15 weeks of the arrangement, to 30th June, were greater than in the corresponding period of 1932, but total imports of eggs in shell from all sources in the period in question showed a reduction of about 10 per cent. The action to be taken to regulate imports of eggs after 14th September next is under consideration, but is unlikely to be announced before the Recess.

Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he has not answered Question 38 in regard to poultry industry; and does he realise that this industry consists very largely of small men who cannot afford to go on losing money?

Mr. ELLIOT: I have dealt with the position in the poultry industry, and I have more particularly answered the second part of my hon. and gallant Friend's question as to whether steps are to be taken before the Recess.

Lieut.-Commander AGNEW: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether he will have power under the Anglo-Danish Treaty to reduce exports of eggs from Denmark?

Mr. ELLIOT: Yes, certainly.

Brigadier-General BROWN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, in many parts of the country, poultry keepers are already selling off some of their stock very cheaply, and that men are being put out of employment?

Major LEI GHTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to stop the importation of eggs from Turkey?

Mr. ELLIOT: Any reduction of imports must not discriminate specifically against any particular country.

HOUSE OF COMMONS (VENTILATION).

Mr. BERNAYS: 40.
asked the First Commissioner of Works whether he will examine the possibility of fitting electric fans in the Chamber in order to produce a cooler atmosphere during the summer months?

The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Mr. Ormsby-Gore): The air is already drawn into and through this Chamber by means of electric fans. The installation of electric fans in the Chamber itself would only create draughts without reducing the temperature, which, during the recent hot weather, has never exceeded 71 degrees Fahr. To reduce the temperature further without increasing the humidity of the air to an uncomfortable point would involve provision of new plant at a cost of some £4,000 or £5,000, in addition to running costs of some £500 per annum, and I should be disposed to doubt whether conditions as they exist are such as to warrant expenditure of that order.

Mr. BERNAYS: As the ventilation in this House has been so unsatisfactory during this summer, will the right hon.
Gentleman make fresh inquiries before we have another hot summer?

Mr. GURNEY BRAITHWAITE: Might not one of the results of this proposal be to make Ministerial replies even more inaudible than they are at present.

Mr. GROVES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that very slight inconvenience is caused to Members of the Government, as there are usually no more than six of their back benchers in attendance?

REGENTS PARK.

Lieut.-Colonel MOORE: 41.
asked the First Commissioner of Works whether he can give an undertaking to the House that no steps will be taken to demolish St. John's Lodge, Regent's Park, until this House reassembles after the summer Recess or until it has had an opportunity of registering its views on the proposal?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: As I have stated in reply to other questions, I have at this moment various proposals under consideration as to possible uses for St. John's Lodge. I do not anticipate being in a position to reach a decision in the matter before the Recess, and, if I ultimately come to the conclusion that there is no alternative to demolition, I will certainly inform the House before any such action is taken.

Mr. BURNETT: Can the right hon. Gentleman assure us that the fabric will not come to pieces before these proposals are formulated?

SCOTLAND (TEACHERS' SALARIES).

Lieut.-Colonel MOORE: 42.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland which education authorities in Scotland have reduced the reduction in the salaries of their teachers to less than 5 per cent. below the 1931 level?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Mr. Skelton): As the answer is necessarily somewhat long, I propose, with the hon. and gallant Member's permission, to circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Lieut.-Colonel MOORE: Will the hon. Gentleman also intimate to those county authorities, who have failed so far to carry out the decision of Parliament this year, his desire that they should do so?

Mr. SKELTON: My hon. and gallant Friend's question, as far as I understand, deals with a different point.

Following is the answer:

The following 11 authorities have submitted revised schemes of scales of salaries at rates providing for a reduction of less than 5 per cent. below the level of January, 1931: Dundee (for teachers paid at rates less than. £150 per annum), Edinburgh, Argyll, Caithness, Clackmannan, East Lothian, Lanark, Midlothian, Orkney, Ross and Cromarty, West Lothian. At present 12 education authorities have still to submit revised schemes to the Department, but my right hon. Friend anticipates that 11 of these authorities will pay all or some of their teachers as from 1st July at rates where the reduction is less than 5 per cent. below the 1931 level.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT.

ROAD ACCIDENTS.

Mr. VYVYAN ADAMS: 43.
asked the Minister of Transport whether he has any statement to make about the grave increase of fatal road accidents in the last fortnight?

The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Hare-Belisha): May I refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave on this subject on the 16th July to the hon. and gallant Member for South Leicester (Captain Waterhouse) of which I am sending him a copy?

Mr. WHITESIDE: Will the Minister consider making it compulsory that motorists should bear the first £5 of the costs incurred in each and every accident?

HON. MEMBERS: Why?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I should be much happier if my hon. Friend would put his suggestion in writing, together with the arguments with which he supports it.

Mr. CADOGAN: 46.
asked the Minister of Transport whether, in view of the continued increase of road accidents, it is his intention to introduce legislation dealing with ribbon development on the main roads at an early date?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I am devoting attention to this question in conjunction with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health and my hon. Friend will not expect me to make any statement as to legislation.

PEDESTRIAN CROSSING-PLACES.

Mr. ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: 44.
asked the Minister of Transport whether he proposes to introduce marked crossing-places where pedestrians will, unless held up by a policeman, invariably have the prior right; and, if so, what steps will he take to ensure that the public are made aware of the intention of these regulations?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Marked crossing-places for pedestrians have already been introduced experimentally at various junctions which are not controlled by police or light signals. At these crossings the pedestrian has the right of way at all times. The attention of the public has been drawn to this experiment by notices issued to the Press, broadcasts from the British Broadcasting Corporation, and a number of special articles in the Press.

Mr. ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Will the Minister consider having a policeman at each of these experimental crossing-places to explain to the public what is expected from them?

Mr. SIMMONDS: In view of the confusion which exists between controlled and uncontrolled crossings and the entirely different obligations on pedestrians and drivers of vehicles which are involved, will the Minister consider having these two types of crossings marked in a conspicuously different manner?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: In regard to the first supplementary question, I have too much respect for the intelligence of the public to assume that they are unable to understand a system which prevails in all the principal capitals of the world. With regard to the second suggestion, I think it has already been adopted. Uncontrolled crossings are marked with a large "C."

DEFENCE PROBLEMS (DOMINIONS).

Captain CUNNINGHAM - REID: 45.
asked the Prime Minister if he will consider the early summoning of an Imperial
air-defence conference to enable this country and the self-governing Dominions to co-ordinate their several air programmes, with the view to the organisation of a, common Imperial policy of air defence?

The LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL (Mr. Baldwin): The normal methods of consultation with Dominion Governments in all matters of common concern are available in connection with problems of defence, and in addition special facilities are provided for the discussion of such problems through the machinery of the Committee of Imperial Defence. These methods are being fully utilised, and I doubt whether there is need to supplement them in the special manner suggested by my hon. and gallant Friend, though he may rest assured that His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom always welcome any additional opportunities which may arise for personal discussion with Dominion representatives.

IRISH FREE STATE.

Mr. HEALY: 48.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can state the total loss to the industries of this country since December, 1931, occasioned by the dispute with the Irish Free State; and if he can give the figures of exports to the Irish Free State for the years 1922 and 1923 as compared with 1932 and 1933?

Dr. BURGIN: I regret that the desired information is not available. Particulars of the trade of the United Kingdom with the Irish Free State have only been recorded as from the 1st April, 1923. The aggregate value of merchandise consigned from this country to the Irish Free State during 1932 and 1933 is given in tables XI and XII of the issue for January last of the "Accounts relating to Trade and Navigation of the United Kingdom."

Mr. HEALY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say why the working people of this country should be made to suffer loss of wages from a dispute with which the majority have no concern?

54. Mr. HEALY: asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether, in view of the importance of an Irish settlement to this country, he will consider the advisability of entering into fresh negotiations with the Government of the
Irish Free State on the basis of the article for an agreement of 1921, and of ascertaining the views of the people concerned, as provided for in Clause 12?

The SECRETARY of STATE for DOMINION AFFAIRS (Mr. J. H. Thomas): I would refer the hon. Member to the replies which I have given to previous questions on this subject, and in particular to the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) on the 5th July last. I have nothing to add to those replies, except to point out that the latter part of Clause 12 of the Articles of Agreement of 1921 was revoked by a subsequent agreement entered into in 1925. Effect was given to the latter agreement by simultaneous legislation in Parliament here and in the Irish Free State Parliament.

Mr. HEALY: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that the cause of the present dispute with the Irish Free State is the British Government's failure to carry out its own part of the Treaty?

HON. MEMBERS: No!

Lieut.-Colonel MOORE: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether the President of the Irish Free State has given any indication, by word or act, as to whether he desires these negotiations?

Mr. SPEAKER: This was all answered on the 5th July.

POST OFFICE (ACCOUNTS, NORTHERN IRELAND).

Mr. HEALY: 53.
asked the Postmaster-General if he can give the cost of the Post Office services in Northern Ireland for the past three financial years, with the revenue received?

Major GEORGE DAVIES (Lord of the Treasury): I have been asked to reply. As the reply contains a number of figures I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the reply:

Expenditure.
Revenue.



£
£


1931–32
869,230
891.402


1932–33
894,892
898,516


1933–34
917,000
920,000

EMPIRE MIGRATION.

Mr. PETHERICK: 55.
asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether the committee set up by him to examine the problem of migration within the Empire has yet presented its report; whether it will be available for Members' of the House of Commons; and what action he proposes to take with regard to it?

Mr. J. H. THOMAS: I understand that the committee have completed their report and have discussed it at a series of meetings with the Oversea Settlement Committee. I anticipate that it will be presented to me at an early date; and I hope to arrange for its publication at such time as will make it available for Members of the House when the House reassembles.

OFFICE OF THE MASTER IN LUNACY (STAFF).

Mr. ALBERT RUSSELL: 56.
asked the Attorney-General whether he is aware that great delay is taking place in dealing with applications for the appointment of receivers on the estates of persons detained in mental institutions in England when such applications are submitted to the Management and Administration Department, Personal Application Branch, of the Royal Courts of Justice; that in some cases the delay is as long as 10 months and that the reason put forward for the delay is the great pressure of work in the department; and whether he will take steps to secure, by increase of staff or otherwise, that such applications can be dealt with within a reasonable time of their presentation?

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Thomas lnskip): My Noble Friend the Lord Chancellor is aware that there is congestion of business in the office of the Master in Lunacy, in spite of the very large increases in the staff of the department which have been made during recent years. My Noble Friend has set up a committee to consider whether the staff organisation and accommodation of the department are adequate and, if not, what alterations are necessary and desirable.

Mr. RUSSELL: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman see that the delay is remedied as soon as possible?

LITHUANIA (MEMEL STATUTE).

Captain CUNNINGHAM - REID: 58.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether,any note has yet been received from the German Government relative to the Memel statute, and, if so, of what nature; whether he is contemplating a separate reply or a reply jointly with the other signatories to the Memel Convention of 1924; and, in either case, what the tenor of such reply will be?

The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Mr. Eden): Yes, Sir; my right hon. Friend received a note from the German Ambassador complaining of various alleged breaches of the Statute on the part of the Lithuanian Government, and, in particular, of the recent dismissal from office of Dr. Schreiber, the President of the Memel Directorate. Before its receipt His Majesty's Government, who are following the situation in Memel with close attention, were already in communication with their co-signatories of the Convention on the subject of Memel. My hon. and gallant Friend is doubtless aware that the only locus standi of the German Government in this matter derives from their membership of the Council of the League of Nations, to which body any complaints should properly be addressed.

TURKEY (FIRING ON BRITISH NAVAL BOAT).

Mr. ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: 59.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is yet in a position to give a full statement of the circumstances in which British officers were fired on by Turkish soldiers and a British officer killed?

Mr. EDEN: His Majesty's Government are still actively discussing the matter with the Turkish Government, but I cannot make any further statement to-day.

RIVER POLLUTION (BRISTOL CHANNEL).

Mr. DAVID GRENFELL: 19.
asked the Minister of Health- whether he has yet received from local authorities in South Wales a resolution calling for the appointment of a joint committee to deal with river pollution; and whether he has decided to take action on the matter?

Sir H. YOUNG: The only resolution which I have received is from the Swansea Town Council, advocating a joint committee to deal with pollution in the Bristol Channel, and I am 'advised that I have no power to set up such a committee.

Mr. GRENFELL: Has the right hon. Gentleman communicated with the town council to that effect?

Sir H. YOUNG: I cannot say, offhand, whether there has been any such communication.

FISHING INDUSTRY (TRAWLERS).

Sir ROBERT HAMILTON (for Major Sir ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR): 50.
asked the President of the Board of Trade the number of trawlers completed for British registry in the years 1927, 1928, 1929, and 1930; and the number completed for British registry during the six months ended 31st December, 1933, and the 30th June, 1934?

Dr. BURGIN: As the answer contains a tabular statement I will circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the statement:

So far as the Department have been able to ascertain, the number of trawlers completed for British registry in the periods indicated are shown below:

In the year 1927
10


In the year 1928
53


In the year 1929
64


In the year 1930
69


In the six months ended 31st December, 1933
25


In the six months ended 30th June, 1934
12

Oral Answers to Questions — IMPERIAL DEFENCE (AIR POLICY).

MR. BALDWIN'S STATEMENT.

Mr. ATTLEE: (by Private Wotice) asked the Lord President of the Council whether he has any statement to make in regard to the air policy of the Government?

Mr. BALDWIN: Ever since the War, successive Governments in this country have actively pursued a policy of international disarmament. In our efforts to further this policy by example as well as precept we have reduced our own arma-
ments to a dangerously low level in the hope that others would follow our lead. But the disarmament negotiations have been drawn out longer than anyone anticipated. The Preparatory Commission lasted from 1926 to December, 1930, inclusive. The Disarmament Conference opened on 2nd February, 1932, and has pursued its labours ever since. During these 81 years, misgivings have arisen from time to time in many quarters at the increasing accummulation of deficiencies in our Defence Services, particularly in view of the increased expenditure on armaments in many other countries.
Most of the leaders of all three parties are familiar with the position in its general outline, not only from knowledge acquired while in office, but also from a three-party conference on Disarmament in 1931, in the privacy of which all the facts of the situation were disclosed in confidence.
The Government's policy remains one of international disarmament, and we have by no means abandoned hope of reaching some limitation. As mentioned in the Debate on 13th July, we are even now making fresh efforts to break the virtual deadlock that exists at Geneva. Unfortunately, however, particularly in view of past experience, we cannot count on an early result, and in view of our commitments under the Covenant of the League and the Locarno Treaty, the many symptoms of unrest in Europe and elsewhere, and the failure of other governments to follow our example by comparable reductions, we have for some time felt that the time has come when the possibility of keeping our armaments at their present low level must be reconsidered, in the absence of comparable reductions by other Powers. This is a situation which, I believe, leaders of all parties have foreseen must sooner or later be reached.
In the light of these considerations, the whole question of Imperial defence and the part to be played in it by the three Defence Services has been for some months under review by the Government. It is not necessary to-day to give any complete account of our inquiries or of the detailed conclusions at which we have arrived. The deficiencies which it will be necessary to make good are largely deficiencies in equipment and
stores which, as I mentioned in my speech on 21st March, have grown up owing to financial stringency and the discussions on disarmament. In these respects, the results of our inquiries will be reflected in the Estimates for future years, and can be more conveniently discussed when those Estimates are debated.
So far as the Royal Air Force is concerned, however, the position is rather different. Here it is a case of the need for further development, which has time and again been postponed, in addition to the need for making good deficiencies. We have come to the conclusion that we cannot delay any longer measures which will in the course of the next few years bring our air forces to a level more closely approaching that of our nearest neighbours. Moreover, in the case of the Royal Air Force, specific undertakings have been given that an announcement will be made before the end of the present Session.
Before coming to the programme we have decided to adopt, I would emphasise that many factors which have influenced our decision are still fluctuating and liable to change. This applies equally to the future of disarmament and the whole international situation. Consequently our defensive position will have to be kept constantly under review, and we reserve the right to modify or adjust the programme in the light of new factors that may arise.
Subject to this caveat we have decided on a programme covering the present and the four ensuing years, under which the Royal Air Force will be increased by 41 new squadrons, including those already announced in the 1934 programme. Of these 41 squadrons, 33 will be allotted to Home Defence, raising the existing 42 squadrons at home to a total of 75 squadrons. The remaining squadrons are for service with the Fleet Air Arm or abroad. The rate at which this programme can be carried out within the five years must depend upon various considerations, including finance, which I cannot specify now. We hope, however, so to space out the work, as not to make an unmanageable addition to the Estimates in any one year.

Mr. ATTLEE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether that announcement
involves the introduction of Supplementary Estimates?

Mr. BALDWIN: I would rather deal with that question and—may I say beforehand—with any supplementary question on this statement, when we have the Debate. I hope that it may he possible to arrange a Debate before we rise. I think it is very important that we should. The Government have a case which they desire to put before the House and the country, and no doubt there will be many Members in all parts of the House who will wish to carry a full investigation into these matters. I prefer to reserve my reply to that question until the occasion of the Debate.

Mr. ATTLEE: I beg to give notice that we intend to raise this matter as soon as an opportunity is afforded.

Sir HERBERT SAMUEL: Prior to the Debate taking place, would the Government present a White Paper to the House showing more precisely the effect of this programme both in regard to the present and future strength of the Air Force, and its financial aspects?

Mr. BALDWIN: I will consider that and see what can be done.

Mr. CHURCHILL: Does not my right hon. Friend see that it will be very difficult to discuss this matter next week unless we have something much more definite than the statement. Which he has made?

Rear-Admiral Sir MURRAY SUETER: The Members of the Air Committee have asked me to thank the Lord President of the Council—

HON. MEMBERS: Order!

Sir M. SU ETER: May I ask the acting Prime Minister whether he does not think that five years is rather too long—

Mr. SPEAKER: This is not the time for a Debate.

Mr. MAXTON: Could the right hon. Gentleman give us some indication of the kind of opportunity that will be presented to us for the discussion? Is he thinking in terms of its being raised on the Motion for the Adjournment for the Autumn Recess, or on a Motion on the Paper which will enable Members to vote on the subject?

Wing-Commander JAMES: In the Debate that is foreshadowed, will facilities be given for discussing air defence in its proper relation to Imperial defence as a whole, and not be solely confined to air defence?

Mr. BALDWIN: It is quite impossible to answer that question at the moment because it must depend on the form of the House under which the Debate takes place, and also on the Ruling of the Chair at the time. With regard to the Debate, it is a matter for discussion now through the usual channels. I cannot myself say what form it will take, but it is quite clear that everyone will desire that a full day's discussion shall be given to it. If there be a desire, on the part of the Opposition for example, that the Debate should take place on a Motion, I have no doubt that that, can be arranged through the usual channels.

Mr. CHURCHILL: Could the Lord President answer the question which ventured to ask, following on the question put by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel), as to whether some further information as to the scale and the time-table of this expenditure, and the contingent expense which would attach to it in successive stages, should not be placed before us before we attempt to discuss it?

Mr. BALDWIN: I am not quite sure whether at the moment I am prepared to put forward a time-table, but I will see what can be done. The reasons for the action we are taking could not go into a White Paper, but would have to be developed in the speeches. I think that probably it will be for the convenience of the House if I speak at the beginning of the Debate, and try to make clear the whole position of the Government and what we are aiming at; and then what I may call the more technical points might be raised later. I hope to be in a position to give the House ample material on which to base the Debate.

Mr. CHURCHILL: I gather that my right hon. Friend will see what can be done with regard to laying a White Paper?

Mr. BALDWIN: indicated assent.

Mr. ATTLEE: May I ask that that should be done as soon as possible, because the right hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Members who took part
in the tripartite discussion are now all included in the Government, and are not on this side?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. ATTLEE: May I ask the Lord President of the Council what will be the business on the days previous to the Summer Adjournment.

Mr. BALDWIN: Monday: Cattle Industry (Emergency Provisions) Bill, Committee stage; Navy, Army and Air Expenditure, 1932, Committee.
Tuesday: Cattle Industry (Emergency Provisions) Bill, Third Reading; Whaling Industry (Regulation) Bill [Lords], Committee and remaining stages; Navy, Army and Air Expenditure, 1932, Report.
Wednesday and Thursday: 19th and 20th Allotted Supply Days. At 10 o'clock on these days the Committee and Report stages, respectively, of all outstanding Supply Votes will be put from the Chair.
Friday: Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill, Second Reading.
Monday, 30th July: Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill, remaining stages.
The subjects to be discussed in Supply and on the Appropriation Bill will be announced later.
If all the outstanding business has been disposed of, including any Lords Amendments to Bills which have already passed this House, and Motions to approve Import Duties Orders, the Government hope that it will be possible to take the Motion for the Summer Adjournment on Tuesday, 31st July. I may add that the House would meet at 11 a.m. on that day.
The date of re-assembly in the autumn, and the business to be considered during the first week, will be announced later.
The Motion for the Summer Adjournment will contain the usual provisions to empower Mr. Speaker, on representations being made by the Government, to call the House together at an earlier date if such a course appears to be necessary in the public interest.

Mr. TINKER: May I ask when the Supplementary Estimate which has just been issued is going to be taken?

Mr. BALDWIN: With regard to the Supplementary Estimates, they share the fate of Supplementary Estimates at this particular season of the year. If any of
them are put down for discussion on a Supply Day, they can be discussed, but, whether they are or are not, they will be included in the Votes put from the Chair on the last two Supply nights.

Mr. TINKER: I think that the question of the Victorian migrants is worthy of the attention of the House.

Sir W. BRASS: Can my right hon. Friend say when the Lords Amendments to the Traffic Bill are likely to be taken?

Mr. BALDWIN: I cannot say that at present.

Mr. ATTLEE: May I ask the Lord President what business he proposes to take to-night, in the event of the Motion on the Paper being carried?

Mr. BALDWIN: The first five Orders.

Motion made, and Question put,
That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the 'Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[Mr. Baldwin.]

The House divided: Ayes, 276; Noes, 45.

Division No. 339.]
AYES
[3.58 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Denville, Alfred
James, Wing Com. A. W. H.


Adams, Samuel Vyvyan T. (Leeds, W.)
Dixon, Rt. Hon. Herbert
Jesson, Major Thomas E.


Agnew, Lieut.-Com. P. G.
Doran, Edward
Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd)
Drummond-Wolff, H. M. C.
Kerr, Hamilton W.


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Duckworth, George A. V.
Keyes, Admiral Sir Roger


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Dugdale, Captain Thomas Lionel
Kimball, Lawrence


Atholl, Duchess of
Duggan Hubert John
Knight, Holford


Ballile, Sir Adrian W. M.
Edmondson, Major Sir James
Knox, Sir Alfred


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Elliot, Rt. Hon. Walter
Lamb. Sir Joseph Quinton


Balfour, Capt. Harold (I. of Thanet)
Ellis, Sir R. Geoffrey
Lambert, Rt. Hon. George


Balnlel, Lord
Elmley, Viscount
Law, Sir Alfred


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Emmett, Charles E. G. C.
Leckie, J. A.


Barton, Capt. Basil Kelsey
Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Leighton, Major B. E. P.


Beaumont, Hon. R.E.B. (Portsm, th,C.)
Evans, Capt. Arthur (Cardiff, S.)
Levy. Thomas


Beit, Sir Alfred L.
Evans, R. T. (Carmarthen)
Liddell, Walter S.


Benn, Sir Arthur Shirley
Everard, W. Lindsay
Lindsay, Kenneth (Kilmarnock)


Bernays, Robert
Flelden, Edward Brockiehurst
Lindsay, Noel Ker


Blindell, James
Fleming, Edward Lascelies
Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip Cunliffe-


Bower, Commander Robert Tatton
Fox, Sir Gifford
Liewellin, Major John J.


Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Fraser, Captain Sir Ian
Lloyd, Geoffrey


Braithwaite,.J. G. (Hillsborough)
Fuller, Captain A. G.
Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hn. G.(Wd. Gr'n)


Brass, Captain Sir William
Galbraith, James Francis Wallace
Loder, Captain J. de Vere


Broadbent, Colonel John
Ganzonl, Sir John
Loftus, Pierce C.


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Glimour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon.
Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'I'd., Hexham)
Sir John Glossop, C. W. H.
Mabane, William


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Gluckstein. Louis Halle
MacAndrew, Lieut.-Col. C. G.(Partick)


Brown, Brig.-Gen.H. C.(Berks.,Newb'y)
Glyn, Major Sir Ralph G. C.
MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)


Browne, Captain A. C.
Goff, Sir Park
McEwen, Captain J. H. F.


Buchan, John
Goldie, Noel B.
McLean, Major Sir Alan


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Goodman, Colonel Albert W.
McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)


Burgin, Dr. Edward Leslie
Gower, Sir Robert
Macmillan. Maurice Harold


Burnett. John George
Graham, Sir F. Fergus (C'mb'rl'd, N.)
Macgulsten, Frederick Alexander


Butt, Sir Alfred
Granville, Edgar
Maitland, Adam


Cadogan. Hon. Edward
Graves, Marjorie
MakIns, Brigadier General Ernest


Caine, G. R. Hall-
Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Manningha-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.


Campbell, Sir Edward Tasweil (Brmly)
Grimston, R. V.
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.


Campbell-Johnston, Malcolm
Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E.
Marsden, Commander Arthur


Caporn, Arthur Cecil
Guinness, Thomas L. E. B.
Martin, Thomas B.


Cautley, Sir Henry S.
Gunston, Captain D. W.
Mason, Col. Glyn K. (Croydon, N.)


Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chippenham)
Guy, J. C. Morrison
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John


Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N.(Edgbaston)
Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.
Milne, Charles


Chapman, Col. R.(Houghton-le-Spring)
Hales, Harold K.
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)


Chapman, Sir Samuel (Edinburgh, S.)
Hall. Capt. W. D'Arcy (Brecon)
Morgan, A. Hugh Elsdale


Choriton, Alan Ernest Leofric
Hartland, George A.
Moose'', Rt. Hon. Sir B. Eyres


Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer
Harvey, George (Lambeth, Kenningt'n)
Moore, Lt.-Col. Thomas C. R. (Ayr)


Clarry, Reginald George
Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)
Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col..J. T. C.


Clayton, Sir Christopher
Haslam, Sir John (Bolton)
Moreing, Adrian C.


Cobb. Sir Cyril
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.
Morgan, Robert H.


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Hellgers. Captain F. F. A.
Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)


Colville, Lieut.-Colonel J.
Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)
Moss, Captain H. J.


Cook, Thomas A.
Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller
Munro, Patrick


Cooper, A. Duff
Hope, Capt. Hon. A. O. J. (Aston)
Nation, Brigadler-General J. J.H.


Courtauld, Major John Sewell
Hore-Belisha, Leslie
Nicholson, Rt. Hn. W. G. (Peterst'ld)


Courthope, Colonel Sir George L.
Hornby, Frank
North, Edward T.


Critchiey, Brig.-General A. C.
Horobln, Ian M.
Nunn, William


Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
Horsbrugh, Florence
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William G. A.


Crooke. J. Smedley
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Orr Ewing, I. L.


Crookshank, Col. C. de Windt (Bootle)
Hudson, Robert Spear (Southport)
Palmer, Francis Noel


Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Gainsb'ro)
Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)
Patrick, Colln M.


Crossley, A. C.
Hunter, Capt. M. J. (Brigg)
Peake, Osbert


Dalkeith. Earl of
Hutchison, W. D. (Essex, Romf'd)
Pearson, William G.


Davies, Maj. Geo. F.(Somerset,Yeovil)
Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas W. H.
Perkins, Walter R. D.


Davison, Sir William Henry
Iveagh, Countess of
Peters, Dr. Sidney John


Denman, Hon. R. D.
Jackson, Sir Henry (Wandsworth, C.)
Petherick, M.


Peto, Sir Basll E. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Samuel, Sir Arthur Michael (F'nham)
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart


Peto, Geoffrey K.(W'verh'pt'n,Bllst'n)
Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart
Sutcliffe, Harold


Pike, Cecll F.
Sanderson, Sir Frank Barnard
Thomas, James P. L. (Hereford)


Potter, John
Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D.
Todd, A. L. S. (Kingswinford)


Power, Sir John Cecil
Savery, Samuel Servington
Touche, Gordon Cosmo


Pybus, Sir John
Selley, Harry R.
Train, John


Radford, E. A.
Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)
Tree, Ronald


Ralkes, Henry V. A. M.
Shepperson, Sir Ernest W.
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.


Ramsay, Capt. A. H. M. (Midlothian)
Simmonds, Oliver Edwin
Turton, Robert Hugh


Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Isles)
Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John
Wallace, John (Dunfermline)


Ramsbotham, Herwaid
Slater, John
Ward, Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Ramsden, Sir Eugene
Smiles, Lieut.-Col. Sir Walter D.
Ward, Irene Mary Bewlck (Wallsend)


Ray, Sir William
Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)
Warrender, Sir Victor A. G.


Reid, Capt. A. Cunningham.
Smith, Slr J. Walker- (Barrow-In-F.)
Wells, Sydney Richard


Reid, David D. (County Down)
Smith, Sir Robert (Ab'd'n & K'dine,C.)
Weymouth, Viscount


Remer, John R.
Somerville, Annesley A. (Windsor)
Whiteside, Borras Noel H.


Rhys, Hon. Charles Arthur U.
Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.
Williams, Herbert G. (Croydon, S.)


Rickards, George William
Spears, Brigadier-General Edward L.
Willoughby de Eresby, Lord


Robinson, John Roland
Spens, William Patrick
Wills, Wilfrid D.


Ropner, Colonel L.
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir Arnold (Hertf'd)


Rosbotham, Sir Thomas
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Oliver (W'morland)
Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)


Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)
Stevenson, James
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Ruggles-Brise, Colonel E. A.
Stewart, J. H. (File, E.)
Wolmer, Rt. Hon. Viscount


Runge, Norah Cecil
Stewart, William J. (Belfast, S.)
Womersley, Sir Walter


Russell, Albert (Kirkcaldy)
Stones, James
Worthington, Dr. John V.


Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
Storey, Samuel
Young, Flt. Hon. Sir Hilton (S'v'noaks)


Russell,Hamer Field (Sheffield,B'tside)
Strickland, Captain W. F.



Rutherford. John (Edmonton)
Stuart, Lord C. Crichton-
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Salmon, Sir Isidore
Sueter, Rear.Admiral Sir Murray F.
Sir Frederick Thomson and Sir George Penny.


NOES


Attlee, Clement Richard
Harris, Sir Percy
Maxton, James


Banfiefd, John William
Healy, Cahir
Paling, wllfre[...]


Batey, Joseph
Holdsworth, Herbert
Rea, Walter Russell


Buchanan, George
Jenkins, Sir William
Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen)


Crippe, Sir Stafford
John, William
Smith, Tom (Normanton)


Dagger, George
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Thorne, William James


Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Kirkwood, David
Tinker, John Joseph


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Lawson, John James
West, F. R.


Dobble, William
Leonard, William
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Foot, Isaac (Cornwall, Bodmin)
Llewellyn-Jones, Frederick
Williams, Edward, John (Ogmore)


George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)
Logan, David Gilbert
Williams, Thomas (York, Don Valley)


Grenfell, David Rees (Glamorgan)
Lunn, William
Wilmot, John


Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middiesbro', W.)
McEntee, Valentine L.
Wood, sir Murdoch McKenzie (Banff)


Griffiths, George A. (Yorks,W. Riding)
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)



Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Malialleu, Edward Lancelot
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Hamilton, Sir R. W.(Orkney & Zetl'nd)
Mason, David M. (Edinburgh, E. [...]
Mr. G. Macdonald and Mr. Groves.


Bill read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

NAVY, ARMY AND AIR EXPENDITURE, 1932.

Resolved,
That this House will, upon Monday next, resolve itself into a Committee to consider the surpluses and deficits upon Navy, Army M, and Air Grants for the year ended 31st arch, 1933, and the application of surpluses to meet expenditure not provided for in the grants for that year."—[Captain Margesson.]

Ordered,
That the Appropriation Accounts for the Navy, Army and Air Departments, which were presented upon the 7th February last, be referred to the Committee."—[Captain Margesson.]

BILLS REPORTED.

RAMSGATE CORPORATION BILL [Lords].

NORTH LINDSEY WATER BILL [Lords].

NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE CORPORATION BILL [Lords].

Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Orders of the Day — CATTLE INDUSTRY (EMERGENCY PROVISIONS) BILL.

Order for Second Reading read.

4.8 p.m.

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Elliot): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
The House has already had a full opportunity of considering the principles which are embodied in this Measure during the Debate on the Financial Resolution. The Government's long-term policy for the livestock industry is set out in the White Paper, and there we also set out the reasons which have led us to introduce this emergency Measure. As it would be unnecessary and undesirable to review those circumstances again, I would desire to pass as briefly as possible to the actual proposals which were laid before the House. The courses which we examined, of course, were an import cut, a levy without any import regulation, or a levy with import regulation, and we were satisfied, as we state in our White Paper, that the levy with regulated imports afforded the best long-term solution; but as this is not immediately practicable, the interim Measure is necessary to hold the situation, pending this development of the long-term policy. In addition to laying our general proposals before the House, we have had, of course, to Table the Financial Resolution, and now the Bill, all stages of which we hope to get before the House rises.
In Clause 1, we establish the Cattle Fund, and that Clause provides, subject to Treasury directions, for the administration of the fund jointly by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Secretary of State for Scotland, and the Home Secretary, who are the three Ministers concerned with agriculture in the United Kingdom, the Home Secretary, of course, being the Minister concerned as regards the Imperial aspect of agriculture in Northern Ireland. Subsection (2) provides for a sum not exceeding £3,000,000 to be made available during the financial year ending 31st March next. That is provided out of the Consolidated Fund, and any advances made to the Cattle Fund have to
be repaid from that fund to the Exchequer before the end of the financial year. Sub-section (3) provides for the money being voted by Parliament from time to time, and the House will have seen from the Financial Memorandum that it is not anticipated that the sum required, including all payments and administration expenses, will exceed the £3,000,000 asked for.
By Clause 2 we are empowered to make payment out of the Cattle Fund. The Clause deals with the administration of the fund and prescribes the objects and the limitations thereof. Sub-section (1) empowers the Ministers to make payments in accordance with any arrangements approved by them. The details of the arrangements are to be laid before Parliament. The producers of cattle are defined in Clause 5, which also defines the cattle in respect of which payments may be made. Those, as I stated on the Financial Resolution, Are steers, heifers or cow-heifers which conform to the prescribed standard, or carcases of such cattle, if they conform with that standard. As to the definition of cow-heifers, the House will see in Clause 5 that they are defined as animals which have calved, but which have not grown more than six permanent incisor teeth, which is to ensure that the older classes of cow beef do not qualify for these payments. Other classes of cow beef and hull beef are not eligible. Both the animals and the carcases, in order to obtain a payment, are required to have been sold in the United Kingdom during a period beginning on a day after the end of August, to be appointed by the Ministers, but what is perhaps not less important from the point of view of the House as a. whole is the fact that payments are not to be made in respect of sales after 31st March, 1935, and there is thus a time limit to the expenditure under the Bill. That fully implements the promise we made that this is a temporary Measure to deal with the present situation, and that this House, and Parliament as a whole, will have full opportunity of considering the matter again at a very early date.
Sub-section (2) sets out the maximum rates of payment which may be made out of the fund in the case of both live and dead weight, the rate in the former case not to exceed 5s. per cwt., and that has
to be specified in an Order made by the Ministers and approved by the Treasury. These Orders have to be laid before the House and can, of course, be prayed against. Sub-section (3) limits the types of animals which can obtain payments under the fund, and excludes 'animals in calf. Sub-section (4) prevents an animal obtaining payment from the fund unless the applicant proves to the satisfaction of the person granting the certificate that the animal has been in the United Kingdom for a continuous period of at least three months. That is to deal with the question of imported fat cattle. Payment will be made for beef resulting from imported steers, but not from imported fat cattle. Sub-section (5) enables Regulations to be made by the Ministers about the dressing of carcases, and Subsection (6) provides for the laying before both Houses of Parliament of all arrangements and Regulations. Under Subsection (7) Orders under the Clause are to be laid only before the Commons House of Parliament. That is, of course, because they deal with financial matters with which the other place is not concerned.
Clause 3 requires the marking of cattle imported into the United Kingdom, which is an essential provision because otherwise we should not be able to administer the scheme. Under the Clause, after a marking order has come into operation, it will be possible for anyone to whom an animal is presented for certification to see from the mark whether or not it has been in this country for the period of three months which is necessary. Sub-section (2) provides for penalties to be imposed on anyone who contravenes the Order or, with intent to deceive, alters or defaces any mark placed upon any animal. There is no penalty proposed for the general run of the Bill. We think we shall be able to get full security from the common law of the country. Sub-section (3) provides that a Marking Order shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament.
That, really, sums up the administrative machinery necessary to make operative the decision which the Committee took, that this financial provision for the cattle industry should be made, but there is the constructive side to which I should like to make reference
Clause 4 empowers the Ministers to appoint a Cattle Committee to advise them in the discharge of their functions and to prepare and submit to them the arrangements referred to in Clause 2 and, if so required by the Ministers, to administer the arrangements because, although it is very desirable that the autonomy of the three agricultural administrations of the country should be preserved, yet it is clearly very advantageous that a thing like this, covering a trade which passes very freely to and fro in the United Kingdom, should be administered by a United Kingdom body if possible and, if we can so arrange it, it will be done by the Cattle Committee acting as agents for the three Ministers concerned. Sub-section (4) requires the expenses incurred under the Clause to be paid out of the Cattle Fund. Clause 5 defines a cow heifer as any female bovine animal which has had a calf but which has not grown more than six permanent incisor teeth. It is necessary for us to consider these matters of definition because we are dealing with growing animals and animals which are subject to more than one use. The dairy trade has beef not merely as a primary but as a by-product, and it is undesirable that old cows should qualify for payment. These are the minimum provisions that are necessary. We have done our utmost to keep down what will be before the House at this late stage of the Session to the absolute minimum necessary to administer the fund that is about to be set up.
Practical details are being worked out in the closest consultation with representatives of the farmers' organisations, the co-operative societies, the meat traders, auctioneers and market superintendents. These are meeting at short intervals in the Department of Agriculture, and they are giving us unstintedly the help and advice that we have asked for; otherwise, it would certainly not be possible to create the administrative machinery in the short time available, for let us be under no misunderstanding as to the size of the task that we are asking the Departments concerned to undertake. There are many men who will have to work long hours and on whom this House has laid many heavy burdens in the year or two years which have immediately passed. There have been many cases of sickness and breakdown among the civil servants who have been responsible for
the administration of the gigantic tasks of reorganisation which have been put through by the will of this House and of the industry in the years through which we have immediately passed. If on any occasion we have given short notice to the House, or our arrangements have not been as complete as we should desire, let us always remember that this work is being done under great strain by a small staff of skilled men who find it almost impossible to recruit at short notice capable assistants to help them in their task, for the tasks have grown up so rapidly that to explain them to others who might be brought in to help would be nearly as onerous as carrying out the work entirely oneself. In fact, as we all know, when you are very busy, the easiest way to do the work is to do it yourself and not ask anyone to come in and help you.
They will have to set up a machine which will cover a million head of stock in the seven months from September, 1934, to March, 1935. It will have to cover from 30,000 to 40,000 cattle a week coming for- ward to the approved centres, which will be several hundred in number. Steps must be taken by marking to prevent an animal being presented and passed more than once for payment. Anyone can see that the possibilities of evasion are by no means negligible, and payment will have to be checked in a manner which will satisfy the ancient accounting machinery of the country that no payment has been wrongfully made and, as the accounting officer for the Department will be responsible for that, we may take it for granted that both he and I are scrutinising with an anxious eye the watertight quality of the work. Payment will be made on the basis of certificates, which will be issued by authorised officers at approved centres, and a certificate that an animal qualifies for payment will be given by a responsible
authority. The certifying authority will take the responsibility for accurate recording of weight and, of course, for the marking, and we shall use every endeavour to work through the existing channels and introduce as little disturbance as possible into existing practices. [Interruption.] It is not the fact that the heads of stocks that can be brought in can suddenly be expanded. There are well understood gradations, and it would be impossible to bring forward calves and pass them off.

Sir STAFFORD CRIPPS: Is there any estimate of the number of individual farmers who will be receiving benefit under this scheme?

Mr. ELLIOT: I could not give the figure now, but it is, in fact, more important to determine the head of cattle, because the certificates will be given on each individual head of stock and, from the administrative point of view, the head of stock passing the authorised standard is the important figure and not the number of persons to whom these payments actually have to be made. I think the number covers a very large percentage of the farmers of the country, because beef is interwoven into the fabric of agriculture so closely that there 'is scarcely anyone on the land who is not at some time or other concerned with the price of store or of fat beasts.
Hon. Members opposite ask the House to reject the Bill on the ground that payment is being made contrary to the principle that reorganisation in the national interest is an essential preliminary condition. The case of the livestock industry has been examined by more than one committee and commission, and they have all, while desiring a certain amount of reorganisation, warned us of two things: First, that unless we restore a remunerative price level reorganisation and marketing facilities alone will not suffice to meet the situation; and, second, that reorganisation will inevitably take a. long time. It is more important to have an industry to organise than to have the organisation without the industry, and the danger before us was that this situation would lead to a widespread crash in the beef-raising industry, and certainly a crash,which mere reorganisation as such would not fully avert. I have not always found that hon. Members who are opposed to the general lines of this policy are any more willing to accept the principle of assistance even when reorganisation has preceded it, because in the case of the milk industry we had long Debates although a great amount of reorganisation had been carried out. En fact, many of them objected to the reorganisation also. We are placed in rather a dilemma if they say, "No advance without reorganisation ".

Sir S. CRIPPS: The right hon. Gentleman has not read the Amendment.

Mr. ELLIOT: It says:
which authorises the payment of a subsidy to private interests in the cattle industry, contrary to the principle that reorganisation in the national interest is an essential preliminary condition.
I should judge from that that, if reorganisation in the national interest took place, they would have no objection to the payment of a subsidy to private interests. On the other hand, no one will deny that the reorganisation of the milk industry was done in the national interest or that it was done rigorously and meticulously upon the lines which the hon. and learned Gentleman commended to the House in the Act of 1931. Clearly, everything done under that Act must be in the national interest. The Minister, in commending it to the House, specifically said that one of its objects was to promote the organisation of the industry and to have a Milk Board, as indeed was done immediately thereafter. Therefore, clearly, if it be done, if there is reorganisation, the payment of a subsidy to private interests is not, at any rate, ruled out by the terms of the Amendment, although with great legal skill the hon. and learned Gentleman has so drawn it that he may stand on either foot and fight the battle on the grounds that the reorganisation, even if carried out, is not such as he would wish to have carried out and that, although it has been done in the national interest, yet we have not been successful in securing that the national interest has been properly observed.
While these small discussions go on, it is possible that a great national interest is entirely lost sight of because of all the national interests that can come before us at this moment, the national interest transcending all is simply that we do not allow agriculture to sink while we are discussing measures that may be of benefit to it. We are all agreed that we do not wish agriculture to go under, but that we wish it to be helped. Therefore, let us concentrate upon the simple question: "Will these proposals be of assistance and, if they are not, what further proposals would hon. Members desire to lay before the House?" They may say that they are not called upon to prescribe, but in agriculture we have done our utmost, not without success, to secure a certain continuity of policy and to secure a certain national tradition. We have not merely
built upon the foundations of the Act of 1931. In one important case we actually appointed a Member of the party opposite to be chairman of a very important commission under it. We appointed him not without strong comment and great disappointment on the part of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House.

Sir S. CRIPPS: Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that this was a party matter?

Mr. ELLIOT: No, that is exactly my point. It was not a party matter. It was a purely personal matter. I can assure the hon. and learned Gentleman that I could have made other appointments which would have caused much greater satisfaction and pleasure to strong party men on this side of the House.

Sir S. CRIPPS: I presume that the right hon. Gentleman selected the person whom he thought best for the post?

Mr. ELLIOT: I selected the person I thought best for the post with the object of maintaining the tradition of continuity which we had begun to build up and which I thought it was the desire of all parties to preserve. When we on this side of the House have taken the somewhat unusual course of appointing the right hon. Gentleman, who certainly would never hold himself out to be a supporter of parties on this side of the House, to go into the organisation arising out of our agricultural policy, I think that it is a little ungracious of the hon. and learned Gentleman to comment adversely upon such a decision, when, as I am entitled to say, it was done with the object, as all of us admit, of bringing to bear opinions not merely from an agricultural source but from the best informed sources we could get on the very difficult problems which are before us in our agricultural organisation. I was stressing this fact, because the hon. and learned Gentleman made such a point of reorganisation. Reorganisation to him seems to be the essential preliminary to any action. The commissions which have examined the question of reorganisation have stated that it is absolutely necessary, if the proper organisation of the livestock industry is to be carried out, that time should be given. The commission under Lord Bingley made proposals for establishing an efficient system of marketing livestock, and proposals for
raising the quality level of home-produced livestock and meat. They put forward proposals for reorganisation which are receiving most careful study from the industry. They specially laid it down that these proposals were to be gradual in their introduction, and the procedure of the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1931, shows that it must be gradual. That procedure involves a period of from six to nine months before any proposal can come into effect, and during that time it would be a little harsh to say that no steps whatever should be taken for the defence of the industry.
This House, in the Act of 1933, specifically recognised the principle that if a reorganisation scheme were under consideration it was reasonable that an interim shelter should be given to the industry, so that hasty decisions should not have to be made. The slaughtering reform referred to in the last Debate was estimated by the committee of the Economic Advisory Council to cover a period of anything up to 10 years. We cannot wait 10 years while the industry hangs upon the possible saving of even some pounds a head—and nobody can put it any higher even if some slaughtering organisation were to be put through in full accord with the propositions of the committee of the Economic Advisory Council. We have stated in the White Paper that it would be an essential function of the commission to co-operate with any producers' marketing board which might be constituted, and with any interests concerned with a reform of the marketing and the slaughtering systems with a view to greater economy and efficiency, which the Government regard as indispensable to the permanent prosperity of the livestock industry. I do not think that anything could be more emphatic than that.
But that clearly belongs to the sphere of the long-term policy. We have to consider to-day what, if anything, should be done before the House rises at the end of this month to prevent the disaster which is overtaking, and has already touched, the livestock industry of this country. For that purpose, we frankly ask the House to take emergency action, and we are confident that the House will not refuse us its consent in this matter. To say that we should postpone all action until reorganisation has taken place, is to say that when a house is burning we
should summon an architect rather than ring for the fire brigade. The danger before us is not denied by anyone. The steps we are taking are admittedly emergency steps, and we confidently commend them to the House in the belief that the one thing which the country and the House would not wish is to see us sit down and appoint another commission while Rome burns.

4.37 p.m.

Sir S. CRIPPS: I beg to move, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
this House declines to assent to the Second Reading of a Bill which authorises the payment of a subsidy to private interests in the cattle industry, contrary to the principle that reorganisation in the national interest is an essential preliminary condition.
I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman thought it necessary to introduce, as a justification for the Government's policy, the appointment of a particular individual who happens not to share the political views which he himself holds. I am confident that if ever that individual had thought that such a use would have been made of his appointment he would never have consented to serve in that office.

Mr. ELLIOT: This is really an important point. I am most anxious that no injustice should he done in this matter. Let me say, without any hesitation, that I am not using the appointment of any person in any way as a justification of the policy which I am commending to the House or have commended to the House. I am saying that we have done our utmost to preserve a continuity of policy, and I think that the hon. and learned Gentleman is taking a course of action which on further consideration he will deplore if he pursues the matter further.

Sir S. CRIPPS: I do not intend to pursue the matter further. I have stated my views upon it, and I shall leave it there. There is one thing which, it appears from the opening words of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, is not concerned with the Bill at all, but which is a matter the House ought to take into consideration, and that is whether the practice of debating financial Resolutions is any longer necessary as regards matters of this sort. We are in
fact starting upon a Debate to-day which is very largely a repetition of the Debate which took place on Monday, but which, under the present procedure of the House of Commons, is necessary. Those of us who desire to expedite and improve the procedure of the House of Commons feel that that is at least one duplication that might in many cases, though not necessarily in all, be got rid of. Naturally in those circumstances the right hon. Gentleman did not repeat any justification for the general policy he is putting forward as regards the meat side of agriculture, nor, indeed, has he explained to us exactly how this scheme is to work. It is not in the Bill. There has not been time to put it there, and I have been unable to follow exactly how he contemplates the scheme working.
Before I come to deal with the form of the Bill, there is one other matter I wish to mention. We should like to pay tribute also to the staff of the right hon. Gentleman who must have worked most heroically during the last few months. We should certainly be extremely gratified if the right hon. Gentleman could engage sufficient extra people to enable his staff to be relieved of that excessive work, which, we believe, really is wasteful. We know of the case of a permanent and distinguished member who was ill for a considerable time as a result of the overwork to which he had been subjected. I do not think that it is a satisfactory system to carry on any service with a few chosen people who work desperately hard until they either die or retire from their work. If the right hon. Gentleman brings forward Estimates to provide for more staff in order to do more work we shall not object oh that score in the least.
When the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland replied to the Debate on 16th July it really did not seem, as far as one could see from reading his speech, to offer any justification at all for the procedure which is being adopted in this case. His remarks substantially come to this, "This is a subsidy, and a subsidy pure and simple. The industry is in a parlous condition; therefore, a subsidy is justified." That is a very simple argument, but it is a very dangerous one. When one reads it in the terms in which he put it, it proves to be a very amazing pro-
position concerning the new policy of the Government. It was as follows:
I cannot see a more useful application of national finances than to support at a time of crisis an industry which is not far off being on a sound basis, but which needs a little extra to tide it over the crisis. I can imagine no more useful way of spending money. It is surely far more useful than to let the industry crash and for the people to come on the dole, which is the theory of hon. Members opposite."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th July, 1934; col. 895, Vol. 292.]
I asked him whether that theory applied to all industries in the country, and that question, very obviously, he did not answer. What he was in effect saying was that if anyone comes along and says, whether it is owing to their own carelessness or means of conducting a business, or to the economic circumstances of the time, or whatever it may be, "If you can only give us a few million pounds we can get along much better," the proper and right thing is for the Government to take a few millions and hand them out without any conditions or regulations. That, I suggest, is a new departure even for this Government. Surely, one is entitled to ask, if an industry comes forward and says that it is in a parlous condition, why it is in a parlous condition. The cattle industry cannot say that it is Socialism which has put it into a parlous condition. That is one thing they are unable to put forward as an argument. They can say that the economic circumstances of the time and the economic system under which they have been forced to run for the last 200 years, no doubt, has had a great deal to do with contributing towards it, and also, as is. and has been, very generally recognised. the way in which the industry itself is run.
We have heard of legislation about scrub bulls, questions about ungraded meat and wasteful selling, the middlemen taking an undue proportion of the money which ought to go into the pocket of the farmer, and of too much profit by the butchers, who are the retailers. All these points have been raised. The chaotic conditions at the present time and the complete disorganisation of this very large industry are generally admitted to be a very large contributing factor to the parlous condition in which it finds itself. I am aware that the Government themselves are to some extent responsible in view of the policies which they have
found it necessary to adopt. The industrialists made them enter into Ottawa, and the financiers made them enter into the Argentine Agreement, and, naturally, having done that, they find themselves in some difficulty as regards the organisation of the meat business in this country.
When one comes to see what is suggested in regard to this industry—the exact difficulties do not matter—which is admittedly suffering from all kinds of dis-organisation, there is absolutely nothing constructive of any sort, kind or description laid down in this Bill. Once I thought that even the Government had adopted the slogan that before you get State assistance you must put your house
in order. We have heard again and again from the Treasury Bench during this Parliament, in regard to the steel industry, the mining industry and various other industries of one sort and another, that, if they desire to get State assistance, whether by tariffs, subsidies, levies or whatever it may be, they must as a first condition start putting their house
in order. The House will remember that that was the position taken up by the Government under the Agricultural Marketing Act itself. It will remember the content of Clause 1 of the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1933, which made it possible for the Board of Trade to impose import restrictions. The Government then inserted—and I remember that there were several amendments to make the words stronger—a provision that it must appear to the board that there had been or were being taken such steps as were practicable and necessary for the efficient reorganisation by means of agricultural marketing schemes or schemes in respect of those branches of the agricultural industry in the United Kingdom for which any such Order was made.
That was under the recent Act of 1933 when the House made it absolutely a condition precedent of the putting on by the Board of Trade of any regulation of imports—a far less direct method of assisting industry than the giving of a subsidy—and it is inconsistent with the policy that is being advocated by the Government which now comes forward with a Bill which has no word or mention of anything at all regarding the reorganisation of the industry. This is quite apart from any objection to a subsidy as a subsidy and looking upon the subsidy as one of the possible means of assisting
an industry or a part of agriculture which is in distress. There has never been any explanation with regard to this subsidy why the Government are departing from the principle which they themselves laid down with emphasis in the first Section of the Marketing Act of 1933.
We say, they stand convicted on their own past record and their own past arguments which have been put forward to support this very principle. The Minister himself supported that principle when he made his Second Reading Speech on the Agricultural Marketing Bill. I forget whether he said it explicitly, but implicitly he put it forward as a, proposition that what was done under the first Clause of that Bill, and certainly the President of the Board of Trade on more than one occasion made the point in regard to other industries and emphasised this same principle. Yet now we find in this Bill a gift or subsidy whichever you like to call it, of £3,000,000 without any condition of any sort, kind or description, and no conditions as far as we can see in regard to the long-term policy. Taking this as a part of the short-term policy the question as regards a long-term policy is how you are going to assist the industry by levy, restrictions of imports or what not, but nothing is said as to how you are going to reorganise the industry or the absolute necessity in some period of time of a marketing board or a slaughtering board and a nationalisation of slaughtering as was suggested by the Economic Committee of the Advisory Board.
There might be some excuse if Ministers said: "This is an urgent matter and for nine months, or whatever it is, we must have the subsidy, but during that time I can assure the House that the industry will be reorganised. I shall compel it to reorganise because we are giving the assistance, with the necessity of reorganisation as a condition." There might be some justification from the point of view of the present Government if that were said, but there is no such suggestion before us either in the White Paper, in the Minister's speech or in the Bill. There is a further, much greater and more fundamental objection which we have to this Bill. We object altogether to the system of unchecked subsidies to private enterprise. If the condition of the industry has become such that the
State has to step in to carry the financial burden and loss of the industry—and that is what a subsidy means, that the State has to carry the loss of the cattle industry to the extent of £3,000,000 in six months—if the industry has reached this condition, it is time it was taken out of the hands of private enterprise and organised as a State service. If people think that a bad thing, let them not have a subsidy, but let them go on under private enterprise. It seems to us to be illogical to have it bath ways, and say: "We must preserve private enterprise, and at the same time call on the State to pay the loss." We think you must come down on the one side or the other. Private enterprise and carry your own loss: or State enterprise and the State carries the loss.

Mr. ELLIOT: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman think the loss would be less under the second system?

Sir S. CRIPPS: I certainly think it would be less. I do not think you could have a greater degree of disorganisation and chaos in the industry as a whole than at present. If you coordinated the whole of your slaughtering, it is perfectly obvious that you would bring about a large measure of saving. Everybody who has inquired into the matter has said so, and I am prepared to take the risk of the State being able to get a better degree of organisation than private enterprise. If I am to be called upon to pay a portion of the loss of private enterprise, I would rather take the risk. If I am to pay the piper, I would like to call the tune. At present the State pays the piper, and private enterprise is calling the tune. It is certain in our view that with a subsidy of this kind a great deal of it will not go to the people for whom it is intended. Presumably it is actually intended for the producer, the man who tends the cattle and does the operations necessary to get the meat on to the market. He is the man whom we have to encourage, and we do not believe one penny of this £3,000,000 will get to that man at all. Some part of it no doubt will get to the farmers, of whom some will be working farmers, who will benefit very materially from the money they get from this Bill, but a great deal of it very likely will go to dealers and middlemen.
There are no provisions that we can see to protect the farmer from the dealer and the middleman being the men who get, not necessarily directly but by the price arrangement, the substantial benefit of this subsidy, and a further considerable sum we believe will go to the landlord, in that the farmer will pay rent where he would not be able to pay but for the subsidy. Many landlords who would not be able to get their rent at all will now get it. That may be a desirable thing for people who believe in the present system, but there is no reason why the Government should pay the money. If this money is to be paid, it should be secured to the person who is doing the job for which we wish it to be provided. We can see no possible safeguard.
There is another very serious objection indeed. There are a great many producers of cattle who do not need this money at all at the present time. HON. MEMBERS: "Where?"] A good many are in this House. I do not know whether any are actually here at the present moment, but I am perfectly certain there are a good many Members of this House who have enough money to live on without getting a dole in respect of their cattle for the next six months. Let us take an ordinary case. This subsidy works out according to the Minister at about £3 per head of cattle. A man in a small way selling 10 cattle between September and March next will get £30 or roughly a pound a week. I venture to suggest that there are thousands of people who will get a pound a week or something like that figure from the taxpayer for the period from September to March next who can live perfectly well without it. They have no need for the 21, and, after all, it is a free gift. It is not being used in any sense to control the operation of producing or of distribution, hut simply a free gift to people who would otherwise make less. It will, of course, assist those who could not carry on unless the money were paid, and if we are to maintain the present system it may be necessary to enable the cattle trade to survive, but it can only be justified if it is the only way. We know there are very wealthy people running home farms who sell cattle at Christmas time, say 30 or 40. They are going to get, £90 or £100 as a donation from the taxpayer. How can that be
justified when you see all sorts of things that are urgently needed and cannot be done?
The standard of allowances for children is admittedly too low to support them in decent health. How can you justify doling out these sums of money to people who do not need it? That from our point of view is a very serious objection, and I am quite confident that many of these people will feel when they get these donations extremely awkward about the proceeding. They will feel they would rather not take this money from the taxpayers when there are half starving people quite close who cannot get money from the taxpayer. Cattle-owners in this House for instance will no doubt desire to vote against this sort of assistance to the cattle-owning industry. It is not the proper way of attempting to assist the industry. It is a question here, not of assisting industry at all, but of assisting the individual producers of cattle. We object fundamentally to a system which is aimed at giving State money for the assistance of individual private producers.
Whether this be an isolated effort or part of a long-term policy, it does not in that respect very much matter. If it be merely part of a long-term policy and that policy be the raising of a levy, it will be even worse than the straight provision of this money from the taxpayers' pocket. If it be paid by the taxpayer it will come from the whole of the population. If, however, a levy be used to repay this £3,000,000 at some future time, a levy which is to be raised on the cheaper forms of imported meat, then clearly it will be provided by the people who eat the cheaper forms of imported meat, and those are not the wealthy people in England. They are the great mass of the people and not those who are fortunate enough to buy the more expensive British meat. In that event, therefore, it will be true to say that the poor man's meat will have to pay for the rich man's table. The truth is that, unless this industry be reorganised, there is no possible excuse for the State stepping in and giving a straight subsidy such as is proposed.
The practice of providing subsidies which has now been started by the National Government in order to get themselves out of their past difficulties has become extremely dangerous. The Minister of Agriculture cuts off imports
and shipping gets into a difficulty. "Well," the Government say, "give shipping a subsidy, and that will help it along." The President of the Board of Trade makes an agreement with the Argentine and allows unlimited meat imports. That creates a difficulty for the agriculturist, and the Government say, Give him a subsidy." We shall go on with this system of contradictory policies, Ministers never making up their minds which lot of people they really want to help, and then turning round to those whom they have not helped, saying, "Never mind, you shall have a subsidy." That seems to us singularly like the rake's progress. One of my hon. Friends said of the Minister of Agriculture last week that he ought to be called the Minister of Scarcity. There should be one qualification to that. He can at least produce abundant coffin nails for capitalism, and as far as he does that he is no doubt assisting in the eventual solution of these problems.
As I understand the Bill, this £3,000,000 as it were, only a vote on account. That is the money which may be taken under Clause 1 out of the Consolidated Fund. In addition to that, there can be paid into the Cattle Fund moneys provided by Parliament; that is to say, we may be asked in future to vote additional sums over and above the £3,000,000 if it should become necessary. In fact, there is no limitation of amount in this Bill at all. The only limitation will be the number of cattle and the amount per head, which in fact is paid under the order which can be made under Clause 2. In the case of the Wheat Subsidy there was a limit in order that we should not get an excessive production to qualify for an unlimited subsidy. It is true, as the right hon. Gentleman says, that not even a farmer can make a calf look like a three-year-old heifer, but there is the possibility that this scheme may divert a number of animals into the market from other sources. It may mean a diminution of the milk supply and of heifers going into milk, and an increase of heifers going into meat. As fas as I can see, the fact that there is no limitation of any sort upon the amount of subsidy that is to be granted does not enable us to take any steps as regards that limitation if it be desirable.
There is also, as I understand the Bill, no limitation as regards rises in price.
If the price of meat rises there will not be any automatic diminution of the subsidy, which can, in fact, be continued whatever the price of meat. Whether it is to come from the State or not is immaterial, but clearly some protection of that sort ought to have been inserted in the Bill. Clause 2 deals with the necessity which the Minister mentioned for marking and doing something with these animals. As it is drawn, it is a most astounding Clause. We shall within the next few months get some of these steers and heifers going round with blue ribbons on them for having qualified the most times for the subsidy. There will be a regular trade in trotting them round from producer to producer, because apparently, according to the Bill, every time a producer sells an animal which is not for slaughter, however short may have been the time since he bought it, it can, if it be home-grown, qualify for the subsidy. If a farmer sells some cattle to-day, he draws the subsidy. The next farmer who sells them is also entitled to the subsidy. If they are resold next day, they again qualify for the subsidy. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] As the Bill stands, that is so. There is no limitation of any sort or kind. I am glad that the Minister is going to make some regulations about marking, but it will be extraordinarily difficult. The Noble Lord the Member for Newark (Marquess of Titchfield) knows how a horse can be painted any colour to make it appear to be something different from what it really is—

Marquess of TITCHFIELD: Anybody who knows horses knows that it is impossible to do that. You can fake horses in other ways, but not in colour.

Sir S. CRIPPS: I am glad the Noble Lord knows how it can be done, anyway. All I hope is that the Minister will take the Noble Lord into consultation on this matter of faking animals in order that he will see that it is avoided, for it is a very real danger and there should have been some provision in the Bill to avoid it. The rest of the Bill is mere machinery. We realise that in a hurried Bill of this kind you cannot put in all the provisions, and that it is obvious the Minister will have to deal with these matters by regulations. We suggest that it is unfortunate, in view of the fact that none of these regulations can possibly
come before the House before the scheme has been in operation at least six weeks, that rather more detail was not put into the Bill. We take the view that the whole Bill should have been conditioned upon something being done. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the word "constructive" when he came to Clause 4. He said, "Now we come to the constructive part of the scheme." This part of the scheme is to set up a Cattle Committee to carry through the subsidy arrangements. That is not constructive. There is no constructive part in this scheme, and we object very strongly to this method of unregulated, unqualified dole for an industry against all the canons which the Government have constantly put forward and which are enshrined in the Marketing Act of 1933. Anyway, we object to the subsidising of private enterprise and private individuals.

5.11 p.m.

Mr. DAVID MASON: I should like to congratulate the hon. and learned Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps) on his vigorous denunciation of this Bill. I do not often find myself in agreement with the hon. and learned Gentleman, and I do not entirely agree with all that he has just stated. I do not think that the only alternative is Socialism. I think that there are other alternatives. With that exception, I agree with almost every word that fell from the lips of the hon. and learned Gentleman. I am in perfect accord with his statement that where there is a grant of public money there ought to be public control, but it is possible to have public control without the State taking over the whole cattle industry. It would be interesting if the right hon. Gentleman would give us some more information with regard to the position of the Cattle Committee and the extent of it. In that respect I think he might meet the criticism that where there is public money we should have a more strict system of control I agree with the criticism of the hon. And learned Gentleman in that respect. We are being asked to vote £3,000,000 of public money to meet what the right hon. Gentleman has described as the parlous condition of the cattle industry. He said that it was necessary to have this money because Rome was burning and so forth, but he gave us very little information. I ap-
proach this question entirely with the idea of being impartially minded, and I have every sympathy with the agricultural industry, which is our most important industry, but I think the right hon. Gentleman gave the House little or no information. He said he had gone over the ground in moving the Financial Resolution, but we are entitled on the Second Reading of a very important Bill to expect that he would make some addition to what he said on that occasion and give us some facts and figures to prove to the House and the country that this departure is necessary.
It Is a very important departure involving, as the hon. and learned Gentleman said, not only a Vote of £3,000,000, but the other policy which is to come later, by a levy, or possibly a duty; and we are entitled to ask the right hon. Gentleman to state at considerable length and in detail why the fat stock industry is in this parlous condition. He should give us chapter and verse to prove that it is in such a condition. I do not profess to be an authority, but I move about the country a good deal, and while I have no doubt that agriculture is suffering from the fall in prices, I do not see evidence of this parlous condition and of imminent bankruptcy. Many other industries are suffering to-day and will continue to suffer. Are they also to come and ask for a grant of money? If they do come, and possibly they may, the Minister responsible for moving a measure of assistance for them ought to give us in definite and specific terms to prove its necessity. The right hon. Gentleman failed signally in the few trumpery sentences at the end of his speech. He is not treating the House with proper respect when, in asking the House for this sum of money, he does not bring his case more clearly before it.

Mr. PETHERICK: The Minister gave full details on the Financial Resolution. I do not know whether the hon. Member was in the House at the time.

Mr. MASON: I referred to that fact. I was present and heard every word on that occasion. I have said that the right hon. Gentleman referred to the fact that he had dealt with the matter on the Financial Resolution and that he did not wish to go over the ground again. It is necessary to go over the ground again.
There may be many hon. Members who were not present on that occasion, and as this is the Second Reading of a very important Bill we are entitled to ask for a full explanation. On this occasion we have had little or no information to justify the Second Reading of the Bill. That is not the way to treat hon. Members of this House. There is no justification for treating the House with such disrespect. The right hon. Gentleman has asked us to give a Second Reading to a Bill which not only asks for £3,000,000 but embodies a very grave departure of policy in some respects, which is fraught with immense possibilities for the future of agriculture and many other industries. I object to this slipshod method of asking, in the first place, for a Money Resolution, then bringing forward a White Paper, then bringing forward a Bill and really not giving us the information to which we are entitled. Every hon. Member knows, or ought to know, that in voting for the Second Reading of the Bill we are not merely voting for £3,000,000 but we are subscribing to it in order to give the Government time so that six or seven months hence they can bring in another Measure which will involve a levy or a duty. That is to treat the House with a lack of that proper respect which is due to it and to every Member of it.
In the Debate on the Financial Resolution the right hon. Gentleman was asked whether the amount was limited to £3,000,000. The White Paper says:
It is estimated that the total sum which Parliament will be asked to provide under the proposed legislation in respect of payments to producers and in respect of the administrative expenses of the Cattle Committee and of the appropriate Ministers will not exceed three million pounds.
It is clear, therefore, that it is merely an Estimate. We do not really know what the Expenditure will be. This haphazard policy of subsidies goes on and on. It is like trying to stop up one leak of water in an ineffective way and the water continues to come out. This is an evidence of the failure of the policy of the National Government. They found chaos, confusion and possibly bankruptcy facing the shipowners, and they come forward with a subsidy for shipping. Then, as a result of the pressure brought to bear on him by agricultural and other Members the right hon. Gentleman feels that he must do something to save the cattle
industry. If and when he brings in legislation to restrict imports he will interfere with the shipping industry again, and I hope that his colleague will have something to say to him, pointing out that if he goes on restricting imports, say, from the Argentine, it will also involve large investments of British capital in that country. If we do not allow Argentina to send in beef, how are they to pay the interest on our investments there? This is an illustration of how the policy of subsidy in one direction interferes with our trade in other directions.
We had an illustration of the same policy the other day when the Government came to the House with a haphazard Measure in regard to German payments. The holders of German bonds saw the possibility that they were not going to get interest upon their bonds. The only way that they can get their interest is by Germany being in a position to trade and to transfer the necessary amount. Germany was willing to pay, but she could not transfer. Therefore, the Government came to the House with a very foolishly conceived Measure and held a bludgeon over the head of Germany, threatening that if she did not pay we should cut off her trade, by introducing machinery to make it difficult for her to trade. Could there be anything more absurd? It is only by Germany continuing to trade and facilities being given for her trade that she will be able to pay the interest on her bonds.

Mr. ELLIOT: Does the hon. Member deny that the policy was extremely successful?

Mr. MASON: The right hon. Gentleman says that the policy was extremely successful. What was the reason why it was extremely successful? Because this House so impressed the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he agreed to an Amendment limiting the Bill to two years.

Mr. ELLIOT: The success has been achieved in a great deal less than two years.

Mr. MASON: This House carried an Amendment of that kind, at a time when Germany was retaliating by threatening to bring in another Bill, and we had the spectacle of two civilised nations bringing in Bills to stop each other's trade. I have great respect for the right hon. Gentle-
man's intelligence. Does he imagine that the average Britisher or the average German does not understand that if Measures are brought in cutting off trade that the Germans will be unable to pay their interest? I see Mr. Deputy-Speaker looking at me, and I will ask his pardon and the forgiveness of the House in that I have been drawn into this kind of discussion, but I suggest, with all respect, that it is relevant, because it shows the utter inability of the Government to understand elementary economics. They have displayed crass ignorance. I say that with the greatest respect.
I have not the slightest doubt that the right hon. Members opposite are anxious and sympathetic. They see dreadful chaos and confusion, but the Government are so ignorant in regard to economics, and they show it in their speeches. I have listened to their speeches, and although I am only a student of finance such knowledge as I have been enabled to master in regard to elementary economics has made me feel amazed at the ignorance which the Government have displayed. I was delighted the other day at an answer the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave to that arch-protectionist the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth (Brigadier-General Sir Henry Croft) who complained of the increase in imports. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was clever enough to take advantage of an admission by the hon. and gallant Member that despite the increased imports unemployment had been showing very considerable reductions until recently. The Chancellor of the Exchequer gave an admirable answer. We have always said that when there was an increase in imports unemployment went down. We have always pointed out that when imports have been at their highest unemployment has been at its lowest in this country.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Captain Bourne): On the Second Heading of the Bill the hon. Member had better keep somewhat closer to the subject.

Mr. MASON: I am sorry. I was trying to show that the Government do not seem to understand these matters. Hon. Members may say to me: "If you object to this policy, what are your alternatives? Have you any suggestions to make" I have no right to stand here and attack the Government without offering some possible alternative, but it is
not our particular responsibility to do that. Our duty is, more or less, to criticise and oppose. I have criticised, and on occasion I have supported the Government when I have thought that they were right. On this occasion I say that, first and foremost, we are entitled to have a definite statement with regard to the condition of the cattle industry. We are entitled to have its parlous condition explained to us. We are entitled to statistics to show that the industry is really in such a parlous condition. If the industry is in a bankrupt condition, which I do not admit, for it has not been proved, then there may be some ground for a direct subsidy. When people are in a semi-bankrupt condition you have to do something for them there and then. The Bill does not refer to the other policy which will follow in six or seven months, and in that sense it is dishonest.
It has not been proved so far that the cattle industry is in a parlous condition and that it is necessary for us to do something at once to save it. I agree that it is an important branch of the agricultural industry and I should be prepared to support it if it was in a state of semi-bankruptcy, because it is most important that we should do something for the improvement of the agricultural industry. If I were in the right hon. Gentleman's place I should first of all give the facts and figures to show that the industry is in a bad state and then ask for a direct subsidy. We are being asked to agree to this duty because the industry is in a semi-bankrupt condition, and afterwards we are to give the Minister the right to prohibit. I hope hon. Members will think what that means. Some of us are fortunate enough to be able to buy our food, but there are vast masses of the people who have to consider every penny of their expenditure. The demand for meat has fallen not altogether because there has been a depression but because there has been a change of taste in the habits of the people and also because the working classes are not able to buy. If they had the power there is no doubt that they would buy beef. Under this Bill you are proposing to tax the poorest people on the product which they buy so as to benefit those who are better off and who do not require any assistance. I, for one, shall have great pleasure in voting against the Second Reading.

5.33 p.m.

Mr. OAR-EWING: I crave the indulgence which the House always so kindly grants on occasions when hon. Members have first the opportunity of addressing the House. If I had waited for many weeks I could not have chosen a better opportunity on which to make my voice heard, first, because in supporting this Measure I am apparently supporting a measure which will be of more benefit to the land of my birth than to the land of my adoption and, secondly, that in supporting the Measure I am also supporting one of my fellow countrymen. It enables me to thank him sincerely for the work he has done, and is doing, to restore prosperity to the greatest branch of the agricultural industry. There is no need in my opinion to stress the condition of the industry which has brought about the necessity for the Bill. No industry which shows a decline in the index figure of the value of its products of some 30 points over a period of three years, and no industry which at the same time shows a decline in the quantity of the sales of its products of nearly 10 per cent. in two years, can ever claim to be in a sound condition. I need not, therefore, stress the condition of the industry. I want however to deal with some of the reasons which have brought about that condition.
It is rather alarming to find that this industry has been subjected to one of the most serious bombardments, as regards imports from other countries, to which any industry has ever been subjected. It has also been a bombardment of very rapid growth. As late as 1910 the imports of chilled meat into this country from South America amounted to about 9,000 tons, but the imports of the same product had risen in 1933 to 400,000 tons. It is indeed surprising that the industry exists at all, and it is a remarkable tribute to the amazing qualities of British beef and also to the ability of those employed in the industry. But apart from this increase, this class of import was never foreseen, and could not have been foreseen, during the last century when this country was being persuaded to maintain a system of free imports. Neither can the ordinary arguments which are so often used, that the cost of transporting agricultural products from other countries, would act as a natural protection be any longer valid.
The increased figures of these imports speak for themselves. The cost, owing to the efficiency of the industry which carries these products, is so low, it is only a decimal point above ½d. per lb. to carry meat from the Argentine to this country, that it has never been able to act as any protection to the agricultural industry.
I do not pretend that we are suffering solely from excess of imports of beef. We are suffering from the change in taste and habits to which reference has been made, and also, I frankly admit it, from a lack of purchasing power, and, if I may so describe it, from a diversion of purchasing power by the means of taxation. If it be true, as has been stated, that it is the poorer sections of the community who purchase imported beef and that it is the so-called well-to-do sections who buy the home product, surely the lower demand for the home product can to a certain extent be accounted for by the lower purchasing power of the so-called well-to-do. Naturally, the question of a restoration of purchasing power is of prime importance if we are to increase the actual purchase of the home product, but, equally, I claim that the restoration of the purchasing power of this large section of the agricultural community is of equal importance with the restoration of any, other form of purchasing power; and as the methods adopted by the Government have proved, and are proving, successful in the gradual restoration of the purchasing power of the people in other directions, so I believe they will, by this Measure, be successful in restoring the purchasing power of this great section of the agricultural industry.
There is a grave obligation laid upon any industry which is in receipt of aid from the State, and that obligation is that the industry should be carried on in an efficient manner. I cannot enter into the argument as to whether reorganisation of the industry should precede or follow any State assistance, but I would say this, that when it is decided that an edifice of some value should be repaired or restored, or brought up to date, it is frequently essential, before any other work is done,
that underpinning should be undertaken, and I look on this financial assistance as a very necessary underpinning in order that the whole structure should not collapse about our ears before or whilst the other work was being carried out. We are all agreed on this, that a reorganisation of production, marketing and distribution, throughout the industry must be tackled at once right up to the kitchen door of the consumer, even up to the point of considering the setting up of chilling establishments to act as a buffer between temporary over-production and an already glutted market.
I welcome these proposals from another angle. I believe that they contain help for another branch of the agricultural industry—namely, the producers of milk. It is impossible to prove statistically the numbers of those who left the beef industry owing to the difficulties of the market and went temporarily into the milk branch of agriculture in order to get the necessary money to meet their weekly wage bill. If we can induce some of those who went into the milk branch of agriculture to come back into beef we shall do a great deal to solve the problem of the surplus production of liquid milk, and thereby raise the prices which the producer can obtain without in any way raising prices to the consumer, indeed, with a great chance of being able to reduce prices to the consumer. There is also the consideration that some of those who went temporarily into the milk industry are working in buildings which are not really suitable for production purposes, and I urge that it is advisable to encourage these people to leave the rather overcrowded milk side of the industry and come back to the production of beef. I think there is a possibility of their being encouraged to do so by this Measure. The fact remains that the consumer has been subsidised by the producer for a number of years; the producer can no longer bear the burden in the beef industry and any financial assistance which is offered by this Measure can be construed as being some slight repayment for the deficiency which exists between the economic price and the uneconomic price at which home-produced beef has been sold to the consumer for a number of years.
Let me touch on one further point; it is a question of great difficulty in the
beef branch of agriculture but it also applies to other branches. It is the problem as to how we are going to keep the best type of agricultural worker on the land. This is not entirely a wage problem. There are hundreds and thousands of highly skilled men, well versed in all the many and different duties which agriculture calls upon people to perform. These men are discouraging their sons from remaining in agriculture because they have seen the industry decline during the last few years and they fear for the future, and in this way they are deliberately cutting away from agriculture a very valuable and hereditary knowledge which the industry can ill afford to lose. It is a psychological problem; it has a parallel in the case of seamen in fact. The type of labourer to which I am referring can be aptly termed the seamen of the land. It is not a problem which applies so much to manufacturing industries as nature enters so little into the processes of manufacture. It may be necessary to encourage mechanised farming and the factory farm in about 30 per cent. of the agricultural area of this country, but for the remaining 70 per cent., owing to the geological structure of this country, it will always be upon the individual, who by a close personal study of the mediums with which he has to deal, the soil- and the beasts, by his individual effort and knowledge, even hereditary knowledge, that our agriculture will stand or fall. We cannot afford to omit any step which will encourage the best type of worker to remain in agriculture. It is true that we can train young men quickly to deal with the mechanical problems of agriculture, but can we so train them to deal with the natural problems which vary from farm to farm, from field to field, and even from cattle to cattle?
I welcome this Measure because within it I see some germ of hope that encouragement will be given to that type of worker to go into an industry which has a very great future indeed. I believe that as a result of this Bill many peripatetic liabilities will turn into stable assets. I regret the necessity of a subsidy, but I believe that if a case could ever be made out for a subsidy it has here been made out. Personally I make no extravagant claim for agriculture, because I believe that no greater dis-service than that can be done to agriculture. I believe that if we are
really to help the agriculture of this country we have to develop a study of the world, and particularly of the Imperial agricultural problem and the commercial problem, and within that big picture a study of the problems of our own basic and manufacturing industries and our own agriculture, not singly but all together. I do not suppose that anyone here would suggest that the manufacturing districts have a monopoly of trouble and of distress. I feel sure that this Bill will be welcome as in some measure bringing happiness to many of the homes of those who are involved in this very great industry of agriculture.

5.47 p.m.

Mr. AMERY: I think that my hon. Friend who has just spoken had no reason for apologising in rising to address the House, either because of the speech he has delivered or because of the circumstance that he has risen so soon after his election. We all know that but for his self-sacrificing action at the time of the last election we might have had the advantage of his contributions to our Debates during the last two years. In any case I congratulate him most warmly on an extraordinarily interesting, thoughtful and well-reasoned speech, in the course of which he touched upon all the vital aspects that affect this great and complex problem of agriculture. There was one aspect on which he laid special stress, and that was the need for efficiency in agriculture to justify the special "underpinning" assistance that is being given to it. He rightly drew attention to the great efficiency of our most formidable competitor, the Argentine meat industry, and of the shipping industry connected with it. That, I gather, is part of the long-term policy of my right hon. Friend the Minister, and I have no doubt that as soon as he has disposed of this immediate and urgent step he will concentrate all his qualities of enthusiasm and energy upon getting a. policy of efficiency in the meat industry carried out in this country.
In the meantime, so far from being concerned with the theoretical problem of economics upon which the hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. D. Mason) laid such stress from the point of view of a Free Trader, or with the equally theoretical considerations brought forward by the hon. and learned Member for East Bristol
(Sir S. Cripps), I think the House as a whole will be grateful to the Minister for having dealt promptly, though none too soon, with the very urgent crisis in the meat industry. More than that, I think most of us welcome the particular method which he has chosen for giving it assistance—the method of flat subsidy, interfering in no way with freedom of trade or with competition in efficiency between individual producers. That method has been proved a great success in dealing with wheat. Some of us have for the last year or more been urging that it was applicable equally to the beef industry. We have done so in the Central Chamber of Agriculture, which has worked out a very full and interesting scheme, and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Maldon (Colonel Ruggles-Brise) has also been giving us the benefit of his experience in working out a similar scheme for some months past.
This scheme, I believe, will succeed. The problem which has to be faced, however, is how the money for the subsidy is to be found. It is for the moment being found at the expense of the general taxpayer; whether that expense is ultimately to be refunded or not we do not know. Under the Wheat Act it was found at the immediate cost of the consumer, but my right hon. Friend contemplates—provision is made for that eventuality under Sub-section (2) of Clause 1—that he will eventually find the necessary funds by means of a levy on foreign imports, accompanied by a smaller preferential levy on imports from the Dominions. I suggest that, in the peculiar circumstances of British agriculture, that is probably the most useful way of helping those of our products in respect of which this country cannot produce the whole of its requirements, and where a purely tariff system or a purely quantitative restriction might unduly send up prices.
After all, this system of an earmarked duty or levy whose proceeds are given as a subsidy has this double advantage: in so far as the levy affords a measure of protection it diminishes the need for the subsidy; in so far as it fails to protect and the foreign produce comes in it increases the amount of subsidy available for distribution to your own producers; and under present world conditions the greater part of that subsidy would be
found by the foreign producer. You get, in other words, an extraordinarily flexible system, giving you ease of regulation and control, with the possibility of studying most effectively both the needs of the producer and the needs of the consumer, which ought never to be left out of account. Therefore, I hope that my right hon. Friend may be successful in putting such a scheme into operation. After all, if we had a free hand the obvious thing to do would be to impose a duty on foreign meat and to give the proceeds of that duty to our home producers, allowing Empire meat to come in free. If, on the other hand, experience proved that the entry of Empire meat competed too severely with our own producers, we could, perfectly consistently with the general policy of Empire preference, impose a smaller levy upon Empire production.
We had a free hand to do that at the Ottawa Conference. There was nothing at the Ottawa Conference which prevented our agreeing with the Dominions upon a levy on foreign produce with provisional free entry from the Dominions, but also—with the concurrence and the acceptance of the Dominions—if that were not enough, then, consistently with the maintenance of effective preference, a levy might also be imposed on Dominion produce. That policy of duties was urged upon the British delegates by every Dominion. It was also urged upon them by every unofficial representative of British agriculture at Ottawa. Unfortunately our delegates were still obsessed with the purely political complex against duties. There was a moment at the end of the Conference when for anyone even to suggest the possibility of duties to a British delegate created an atmosphere of almost hysterical indignation. Now two and a half years later, the Government are being forced to do that which some of us vainly urged upon them at the time of Ottawa.
At the time of Ottawa our hands were free. Since then our hands have been tied by the disastrous agreement which the President of the Board of Trade entered into with the Government of the Argentine. That agreement forbids either protection to our own farmer, or preference to the Dominions, by way of duty or levy. It also forbids any protection to our farmers by way or restriction, except on terms which pre
clude any preference to the Dominions, outside of the very limited restrictions already fixed at Ottawa and of a 10 per cent. reduction of the Argentine figure for 1932. The question now is, how is my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture to get out of this sorry mess? I gather that he hopes to be able to secure the agreement of the Argentine Government and of the Dominions upon some form of preferential levy. I wonder why the Argentine should agree. They have found us pretty weak in dealing with them so far. At this moment the Argentine is breaking the terms of the Wheat Agreement to which we were a party, and we are doing nothing to pre vent the Argentine landing cargo after cargo of wheat on our shores.
It seems to me that they are in a very strong position. Suppose, however, they did agree, under pressure from us, to accept a levy, but stipulated that the same levy should be imposed on the Dominions. Is there the slightest chance of the Dominions agreeing Could we, indeed, have the face to violate the whole spirit of Ottawa to such an extent as to demand from the Dominions a levy on the same basis as the levy imposed on the Argentine? If not, what are we thrown back on? We are thrown back on restriction under the terms of the Argentine Treaty, which means restriction upon the Dominions without any preference to them. That is again a direct violation of the whole spirit of the Ottawa Agreement. What then becomes of all the talk of developing Empire resources? What becomes of the whole idea of developing the Empire in order to find homes for our own settlers? If we do that we are obviously going directly against all that we have declared to be our policy, all that some of us have worked for all our lives.
In the world as it is to-day our whole hope lies in the development of Empire trade. I am a strong protectionist, so far as this country is concerned, for all its industries, agriculture included. But no one can believe that this little island can live by itself alone. We must have a large external trade, and I know of no other part of the world except the British Empire where we can make sure of such a trade. Whatever else we do, do not let us break the spirit of the Ottawa Agreement and wreck the policy that has been entered upon so hopefully and, in
which alone lies any prospect of success for this country. I hope the Argentine will agree. I would add, however, that agreement on their part will riot be much help to us if it involves a binding down of this country for a further period of years to the Argentine. At the end of 1936 we want to be free, free to develop a policy of Empire.
We must get the best terms we can consistent with the principles of Ottawa. If we cannot succeed, the only thing that remains for us, and the House must face the fact, is to go on paying, over the whole of the next two years, the money which, so far, this House has sanctioned only for the next six months. That is an awkward situation to face. It is a heavy price to pay for having at the Board of Trade a Minister who was capable of making such an agreement; a heavy price to pay for a Cabinet so busy with the pressure of its routine work as not to have realised what that Treaty obviously involved, the difficulties it was clearly bound to create.
I have the highest respect for the individual abilities of my right hon. Friends who compose the present Cabinet, but the collective incompetence of the present Cabinet system as a system fills me with ever-increasing alarm. I doubt whether anything short of a complete reconstruction of our system in favour of a policy Cabinet, with its members free from departmental responsibilities and able to co-ordinate all the aspects of policy—the same reconstruction as my right hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) adopted in the crisis of the War—is going to get us out of our difficulty. I hope I may be pardoned for speaking frankly, but nothing could have been more incompetent from start to finish than the handling of this meat business over the last 24 months. It was the inevitable result of the fact that there has never been a single, coherent, Government economic policy in which the various aspects of that policy, Imperial, domestic and foreign, have been co-ordinated. In this matter each Department has been pursuing its own policy and has followed its own ideas. With a Cabinet, inevitably pre-occupied with the overwhelming mass of work which confronts it from week to week, first one Minister and then another Minister has got his way. The result is that the public interest has suffered.
[HON. MEMBERS: "Where are Ministers?"] If I might venture once again to quote Latin in the House, I would say, "Quidguid delirant reges plectuntur Achivi." In other words, "When Walter disagrees with Walter, the taxpayer has to foot the bill."

6.3 p.m.

Mr. JOHN WILMOT: I do not claim any special knowledge of the agricultural industry, but the bill for this new subsidy will have to be met, first, by the general taxpayers, who in the main are the working people and, secondly, when the scheme develops it will be met entirely by the working people, because they have been singled out, as a class, to be the subject of special taxation upon an article of food which they alone consume. I think it is well when dealing with this, which is probably the last of the long series of subsidies to private enterprise which the House will be asked to vote before the Adjournment, that we should take a look to see where we are getting. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps) so clearly showed, this practice of granting subsidies out of taxation to private enterprise is completely altering the basis which is the sole justification for the continuation of private enterprise at all. It has always been argued by those who think Socialism is wrong that private enterprise provides a more efficient service and provides a service in which the State does not have to bear the losses due to inefficiency, due to changing conditions due to the march of progress and the change of taste; and that the profits which private enterprise derived were proper compensations for its initiative and for the losses which it must inevitably suffer in changing conditions. But now those principles have been laid aside, and we have a new form of political economy which lays it down that so long as an industry can be carried on at a profit the profit shall be enjoyed by those whose capital is invested in it, but that as soon as that industry shows a loss the whole community must be taxed in order to meet that loss, though in no circumstances shall the community share in the profits made in good times. That is a doctrine which goes to the very root of the claims of those who uphold the virtues of private enterprise.
Surely the time has come for us to re-examine this matter, and I believe that, if one could put aside the enormous number, and increasing number, of sectional vested interests who are now living on doles from the Exchequer of one kind and another, reasonable men, free from the prejudices which that state of affairs naturally creates, would come to see that if the State is to be called upon to bear the losses of private trade then the time has come when the State should take over that trade and enjoy the profits of superior, broadscale organisation. This type of legislation is the worst kind of class legislation, and it is no wonder that the electors, who put this Government in power in the belief that it would carry on the administration of the country free from party and class bias, are aghast at the use which is being made of the power then conferred. Not only is the Exchequer being raided to provide for the losses of private trade, but the taxation of the poor is being increased in order to provide doles for the rich, and here we have one of the worst cases of that kind. Hon. Members opposite are fond of alleging that the party to which I have the honour to belong, because they believe that it is to the interest of the community that no children shall be allowed to starve, and that no person who is unemployed through no fault of his own shall be allowed to fall below the subsistence level, stand for a policy of mass bribery, and allege that that policy is pursued for the purpose, indirectly, of buying votes.
What of this policy? Here we have industry after industry being subsidised at the expense of the Exchequer, and the result is that all those who are receiving these payments have now a vested interest in the continuation of Tory Government; and every tradesman, every industrialist, everybody who thinks he can make a case for a subsidy, is busily getting into the queue and asking that he may receive early consideration. What benefits are the community receiving in exchange for this? I hope that hon. Members saw the cartoon the other day by that most brilliant political cartoonist, Mr. Low. In case it escaped attention I may say that it represented the taxpayer, with his empty money-box, being led from the Subsidy Stores by Aunt Runciman and Aunt Elliot; and when the taxpayer asked what he was going
to do with the large number of ships and the large number of beasts which he had bought with his money, they accused the boy of reading Bolshevik literature, and told him that he must understand that he had not bought them but had merely paid for them.
As the hon. and learned Member for East Bristol pointed out, another objection to this scheme is that there is no means test in it. When public money is provided for the purpose of avoiding the starvation of the poor, vast and complicated machinery is erected and applied to see that not one penny of that money is paid unless there is urgent and most desperate need. Here it does not matter how wealthy the person may be who has beasts which qualify under this Bill; he will share equally with the impecunious and struggling farmer. When this scheme develops and we come on to the next part of the programme, it seems inconceivable to me that even the present Government can go through with it. How are they going to face working class electors when those electors will have the knowledge that there has been added to the price of their meat a sum per pound for the sole purpose of reducing the price of the meat which they would like to eat but cannot afford? That will be the exact position which will arise when this levy is applied. It is one of our complaints against this extraordinary Measure that no attempt has been made to use this opportunity to institute an inquiry into the extraordinary difference between the price paid by the consumer of English beef and the price received by the producer of it. It is difficult for one who, like myself, is unversed in the phraseology of agriculture, to reduce the wholesale prices to retail terms, but I observed in the "Times" of 21st June a letter from a beef producer pointing out a phrase in the report of the Fat Stock Commission. The phrase was:
It is also in the producer's interest that his products should be purchased freely and to an increasing extent by the population of the cities.
The beef producer goes on to say that it is doubtful whether a large proportion of the population of the cities have ever tasted a piece of good English beef. That is literally true. In the constituency which I have the honour to represent I doubt whether a third or even a quarter
of the population have ever had any English beef. In the whole of London, including the well-to-do parts, of the total beef consumed two-thirds is frozen and chilled beef. A great mass of people eat frozen beef, not because they enjoy it but because they cannot afford English beef. These poor people are to have a levy placed upon their food. They are to be asked to pay a. special tax which the rich will not be asked to pay in order to provide a direct dole for people who may be a hundred times as well off as they are.

Mr. ELLIOT: Is the hon. Member's contention that the cure for all that is the extinction of the production of home beef altogether?

Mr. PALING: That is your business. Face the issue.

Mr. WILMOT: I am very glad that the Minister has asked that question. As he has done so, I may be allowed to indicate what I think ought to be done. It seems to me that the proper thing to do is what the Commission suggests, namely, to improve the consumption of home-grown English beef and to allow, in some way, those people who are now forced by poverty to buy foreign beef to join the small select number who are able to buy home-grown beef. The price of such beef as best English sirloin was, I am informed, on the average about 9d. or 10d. a lb. before the War. I am informed to-day that those cuts are being sold in the shops in my constituency at an average price of ls. 2d. to ls. 6d. per lb. or nearly twice the pre-War price. But the farmer who has written this interesting letter in the "Times" tells me that he, as a producer, is receiving a price which is no higher than and is sometimes less than the pre-War price. What accounts for that fact? Why is it that when the producer is only getting the pre-War price the consumer is paying double the pre-War price?

Mr. ELLIOT: Is the hon. Member's remedy to break the wages of the assistants in the butchers' shops?

Mr. WILMOT: I am sorry that the Minister should be so anxious to interrupt me. If he gives me time I shall endeavour to submit something which is, at any rate, less objectionable than the scheme which he has put forward. In order that I may do so, however, it is
necessary that I should first sketch in the background, in front of which these Measures are being indicated. I think it is important when public money is being poured out to the producers of beef to inquire why the producers are not getting the price which the consumer is forced to pay. The Minister may laugh but it seems to me that before we raid the Exchequer, before we take money from the unemployed and give it to the producers of beef, we should at any rate inquire into what is happening to the enormous price which the consumer is forced to pay. It may be that there is waste in distribution. There may be, and I think there probably is a vast monopoly vested interest in the distributive trade in meat, which has the markets and the whole distributive organisation in its grip and is able, between the farmer and the butcher's shop, to exact a toll which accounts for these astonishing differences. I suggest that the Minister instead of laughing about it might inquire into it. There must be some explanation of why my constituents, for example, are forced to pay double the pre-War price with tie knowledge that their farm-labourer friends in the country are only getting about one-third extra on their pre-War wages.

Mr. PETHERICK: Would it not be well for the hon. Member to address that question as to the difference between wholesale and retail prices to the cooperative societies?

Mr. WILMOT: If the co-operative societies were introducing legislation for the attention of this House it would be proper to ask them to make that inquiry. As it is, the co-operative organisation is only one of the retail distributors and we have not alleged that it is the retail shop which is pocketing these profits or levying this toll. I do not know who is levying it and as far as I can see from the official documents available, the Minister does not know either. But the fact remains that the gap is there and that somebody is plundering this trade, somebody who takes no part either in serving at the counter or in producing the goods. I should have thought that it would have been better had the Minister directed his attention to the prevention of that plunder, rather than to the further plunder of the unfortunate consumer. Evidently the Minister thinks
otherwise and we must leave the matter to the judgment of the Supreme Court in these matters—the electorate itself.
I feel that this beef subsidy raises in its most acute form the whole question of the policy of subsidy. Now perhaps the Minister will permit me to indicate what I regard as the better course though I should not have ventured to do so without his invitation. First it seems to me that he should inquire into the reason for the gap between the retail price and what is received by the producers. It is possible that by closing that gap we could do more to put the fat stock industry on its feet than by any other means, but generally it seems to me the Minister's policy is the wrong policy. We have a surplus of agricultural production. We have an admittedly serious under-consumption of that production and serious underfeeding in a vast area both of our child and our adult population. Two courses are open to the Government. One is to see what steps can be taken to raise the standard of living of the working-clas consumer, to double the consumption of home-grown beef and of milk. I merely use the word "double" in a very wide sense. I mean to increase the potential consumption by Government action calculated to raise wage levels, to reduce the unemployment figures and thus immediately create a demand which would solve this problem in the right way, which would exhaust the increased production by increasing the consumption.
The Minister is doing the exact opposite to that. That is why he is coming to be known as "the Minister for Scarcity." He sees a vast unconsumed production and instead of turning to the underfed consumer and enabling that consumer to consume more he solves the problem by reducing production. It is all very well to try to ignore it, but my constituents tell me that they can no longer afford to buy bacon, not because there is a shortage, but because there is a glut of bacon. They tell me that they are unable to buy as much meat as they used to buy. The margin between subsistence and lack of subsistence is so small in the overwhelming majority of working-class families that the increase of 2d. per lb. on meat means that on one or two days of the week in those households there will be no meat where there was meat before. There will be a reduction of consumption due to the rise in price
and the Minister will have solved his problem, by getting a higher price over a more limited field. If he asks me what I think is wrong with his general policy I say that he is dealing with a situation of over-production by reducing that production and creating scarcity prices when he ought to attack the problem at the other end, and raise the consumption level by raising the standard of living of the working people.

Mr. ELLIOT: Hear, hear!

Mr. WILMOT: I am glad to hear the Minister's approval. I hope his concurrence in that view will be followed by actions diametrically opposite to those which have already been taken.

Mr. ELLIOT: There are 800,000 more people now in jobs.

Mr. PALING: Not your fault. Mr. ELLIOT: No, but our policy.

Mr. WILMOT: The right hon. Gentleman is now falling back on the sort of thing which we hear from the Front Bench in every Debate nowadays. Hon. Gentlemen opposite point to the improvement in the unemployment figures. They know very well the cause of that improvement. It is not any success on the part of the Government. It is the Government's outstanding and splendid failure—their failure to keep this country on the Gold Standard. There we have the major explanation. [Laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh but I am happy in knowing that those who study this problem free from political bias agree with me. If hon. Gentlemen will study, for instance, the last issue of the "Economist" they will find some evidence that I am not alone in my opinion. I hope between now and the production of the second part of this pernicious scheme, the Minister will reconsider the matter. How far are we going with this policy? How many more departments of the agricultural industry are to be subsidised in this way? To what extent are we going to raise the cost of living of the very Poor for the benefit of the well-to-do? One can only hope that, complicated as these matters are, the public who are asked to pay these subsidies and the working class families who are asked to go without in order that those who have plenty already may have more, will understand the true meaning of the
Minister's policy and will take appropriate action at the right time.

6.27 p.m.

Mr. PATRICK: The subject matter of our discussion has already been very thoroughly dealt with in this Debate and in the Debate of Monday last on the Financial Resolution, and I do not propose to follow the hon. Member for East Fulham (Mr. Wilmot) except on one point. It seems to me that as a result of the discussions of this matter so far, three propositions have been advanced and have not been contradicted. The first is that agriculture is still one of our greatest, if not our greatest industry. The second is that the livestock branch of agriculture is an essential part of the industry the collapse of which would threaten to bring down the whole structure. The third is that such a collapse is in sight, things being as they are now. The last proposition was questioned by the hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. D. Mason) but by no one else. So far, we have practically got agreement but at this point, unfortunately, agreement stops.
This Bill has been attacked from the Opposition side of the House on two different grounds. Two lines of criticism, which are mutually contradictory, have been directed against it. The first is concerned with the word "subsidy." The hon. and learned Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps) has used that word in his Amendment and I think it would be agreed by most hon. Members that a subsidy, as such, is an unsound policy. But surely it is not only legitimate but necessary when examining the Bill, also to examine the White Paper which preceded it and if we do so we see in fact that what is proposed here is not a subsidy but a short-term loan. A sum not exceeding £3,000,000 is to be advanced for a period not exceeding six months. If that is so, it is only common sense to realise that that fact changes the whole proportions of the affair and the whole basis of argument against the subsidy, and makes that argument inapplicable in the present ease. The other line of criticism, which has been expressed at some length by the hon. Member for East Fulham seems to be contradictory to the first line. His complaint was not that the Bill provides for
nothing more than a subsidy—if it had only done that he would not have minded so much—but that it involves discriminatory taxation between the poorest classes and the rest of the community.

Mr. WILMOT: I cannot have made myself quite clear. I hold the view that the Bill involves both a subsidy and discriminatory taxation.

Mr. PATRICK: I do not think that the hon. Member can have both; this is either a loan or a subsidy.

Mr. WILMOT: It is both.

Mr. PATRICK: It is a loan if we have to pay it back. But I will not argue about that. I want to take up the second point, which is that this penalises a large section of the community. That argument is not valid. It is, in fact, the old classic argument against Protection generally, and it has been used so many times although it has proved itself to be inapplicable. We have had pretty wide experiments in tariffs during the last three years, and the hon. Member himself would be the last to say that those tariffs had resulted in a widespread rise in prices. With reference to beef, there has been spasmodic but a fairly wide-scale application of quantitative restrictions, though no rise in price has resulted; exactly the contrary. The arguments used by the hon. Member and many others who preceded him look all right in theory, but they have nothing to do with practice, and they are not strictly relevant to the case.
If we can trust report and rumour, the Government in the arrangements which they will make in six months' time propose to rely not on a direct tariff or straight, quantitative restriction, but to apply what is known as the system of deficiency payments. That principle is a very simple one, and the consumer cannot possibly be affected adversely or favourably. Under that system, the producer sells and the consumer buys at the market price. The next stage is that the producer is willing, up to a point where his prices become uneconomical, to pay into a fund a levy. The hon. Member says that that is coming out of the pockets of the poorest class. If that were true in practice, it would be a very important factor. The fact is that the more pounds of beef that come in, the more pennies go to the fund, which, in turn,
will go to the home producer. The obvious deduction from that is that when the scheme gets into working order—prices are not practicable at the present time—this country can have, without damaging its own producers, a very much more ample supply of imports than would be the case under a plain tariff or under a plain quantitative restriction.

Mr. PALING: Is that the intention?

Mr. PATRICK: I think it is precisely the intention, although I cannot speak for the Government. I understand it to be so. It seems to be a very elastic system which benefits the producer, with the minimum of harm to the consumer, and vice versa. It has worked that way with wheat. This experiment is very well worth trying. I believe that it will prove to be a success, and I should not be at all surprised to find the system applied, with changes, to other commodities.
Another criticism which has been not so much expressed as implied takes the form of gibes, some good-natured and some less so, at the Minister of Agriculture and at agriculturists generally on the ground that they open their mouths much too wide. It is suggested that the agricultural industry has received an improper share of attention from the Government. My answer to that is a very simple one. Once you accept in any form the principle of direct State intervention for an industry, agriculture has the best claim, both on economic and social grounds. That is a very sweeping statement, and I will give my reason for it. Take some of the other industries in this country. Take coal, cotton, shipping and 'shipbuilding. Those four are entirely different and not comparable, except in one respect, which is that they have all been suffering for a very long time under very grave depression. Would any hon. Member representing a mining district say that he thinks we could ever recover the proportion of the export trade in coal that we once had? It is obvious that the increasing use of oil and of water power and the increase in the production of coal in foreign countries have wiped out a considerable part of our trade.
Precisely the same consideration applies to cotton, because of the most remarkable and unexpected economic revival of China. No one will maintain that Lancashire will ever get back its
share of the export trade, because the competition against it is too strong. In regard to shipping, no one will maintain that there is any immediate prospect of an increase in the total amount of sea-borne commerce in the world as a whole, and now that the world has only one idea in its head, that of self-sufficiency, a general increase of that sort is not possible. If an increase took place, no one can maintain that our shipping would ever again take the place which it once had. The future of those industries is almost entirely outside the control of any Government and neither the present Government with their policy of subsidies and rationalisation, or of hon. Gentlemen opposite with their policy of socialisation and export boards can do more than touch the fringe of the problem, and we all know it.
What a contrast we have in the industry of agriculture. There, alone, is a very large margin of great prosperity and expansion. I will not weary the House with statistics, but will confine myself to mentioning the one branch of industry which we are discussing, that of meat production, although in the other branches great extension is obviously possible. In the last 30 years, the home producer's share in the home consumption of meat has dropped by 10 per cent., and there is no reason why that percentage should not be restored without any dislocation or hardship to any section of the community. The same kind of consideration applies to many other branches of agriculture. Agriculture merits a special kind of consideration. We are faced with the terrific problem of 2,000,000 unemployed, and if we are to re-employ them it is not merely a matter of keeping our industries going, keeping our end up, or not losing ground; it is definitely a matter of expansion. Where can we find a practical proposition, except in the industry of agriculture? It is short-sighted in the extreme to oppose a loan of £3,000,000 to a branch of the industry of agriculture that is in desperate straits.

6.42 p.m.

Mr. MILNE: Last week we were discussing the Financial Resolution, and, apart from representatives of the Government, only one Scottish Member took part in the Debate. To-day we are dealing with the Second Reading of the
Bill, and Scottish Members are still conspicuous by their absence. I say that in no sense of reproach, but because there is an aspect of this Bill which has not received sufficient attention.

Mr. D. MASON: I am sorry to interrupt, the hon. Member, but I would point out that I had the honour of speaking earlier in this Debate.

Mr. MILNE: I offer the hon. Member my apologies. The aspect of the Bill which I have mentioned, and which has escaped attention, was referred to by the Minister last Monday when he alluded to the striking fact that out of the total agricultural produce in England little more than one-third consisted of meat. He contrasted the situation in Scotland, and he told us that more than half the total produce in Scotland takes the form of beef. I welcome the Bill because it is a good Bill. I welcome it on its merits. I do so also for another reason, which is of a psychological character. The Minister of Agriculture is the best liked, but also the best abused man in Scotland. That is the fate of all reformers. The reason is that there is an idea prevalent in many quarters in Scotland—I blush to say that at times I have shared it—that Scottish agricultural interests are neglected by the Government. The idea is that the Government frame their agricultural policy on lines designed to suit the requirements of the English farmers. Many a time I have told farmers of the benefits of the wheat quota, and many a time I have been told in reply, "Yes, but those benefits are reaped by the English farmer." I attach value to this Bill because it is designed to rescue the livestock industry, an industry which is of preponderating interest to Scotland, and I believe it will go a long way towards dissipating that myth.
There is another reason why I value the Bill. It is, quite frankly, because of the cash payment to our farmers. In our homely phrase, they will be able to "han'le the siller." I am well aware that this proposal must be anathema to my hon. Friends on the Liberal benches. It offends, I suppose, against the principle of Free Trade, or, perhaps, the Gold Standard. I know nothing about the contraventions of those alleged principles, and I care less. All that I know
is that here we have a form of tangible assistance which is going to rescue the livestock industry and preserve it for the farmers and farm workers who depend for their livelihood upon it. It is not a loan; it is not, assuredly, a gift; in my view it is a species of token payment—it is a recognition by the Government of a debt due to the farming community, and an acknowledgment of an obligation to see the farmers through the present crisis. I suppose that discretion is an excellent quality, even in the most obscure Member of Parliament, but sometimes it is a great relief to tell the truth. What is in my mind, and I have no doubt that it has often been very present in the mind of the Minister of Agriculture, is that this grant is due to expire, under the terms of the Bill, on the 31st March. For my part, I have complete confidence in the energy of the Minister of Agriculture, and I feel sure that by then the long-term policy will have commenced to operate; but
The best-laid schemes o' mice and men Gang aft a-gley.
Suppose that the long-term policy is not ready by then. Again I say that I do not doubt that my right hon. Friend will have all the parts of the machinery assembled, and that it will be ready; but let us suppose that it is not ready by the 31st March. Then the position would be simply this—let us be quite frank about it—that, if the long-term policy is not ready by the 31st March, the Minister of Agriculture, having put his band to the plough, must see the thing through, and these payments must be renewed, or, at any rate, the assistance must be continued in some equivalent form. I do riot suppose that these reflections will very greatly disturb my right hon. Friend, and for my part. I have complete confidence in his energy and in his well known political activity. Indeed, the only doubt that crosses my mind is that I hope that, as the Ides of March approach, the result will not be an over-stimulation of that volcanic activity which we have sometimes experienced from him. The farming community will welcome this Bill, and I believe that it will be equally welcomed by that larger community to whom the prosperity of agriculture is of vital concern, the general public of Scotland.

6.50 p.m.

Marquess of TITCHFI ELD: Whenever I listen to a speech by the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams), whom I am very glad to see in his place this afternoon, I am reminded of the ancient Paduans. History recounts that the ancient Paduans owned a very wonderful well. It was wonderful because, after anyone had bathed in it. they could make themselves believe anything; and it had a still more wonderful quality, because, not only could anybody, after bathing in the well, make themselves believe anything, but they could make other people believe it too. My hon. Friend's oratory certainly has the first virtue, but I think it is distinctly lacking in the second. I did not have the privilege of listening to the speech that he made on Monday, but I read it very carefully in the OFFICIAL REPORT on Tuesday morning, and, if my hon. Friend does not mind my saying so, I thought it was hardly worthy of him.
He started by sneering at what the Government had done for agriculture. As he has done that, I should like to ask him a question. He certainly knows much more about agriculture than anyone else in the Labour party, even more than the hon. and learned Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps), who does not even know how or how not to doctor up a horse. I am afraid that the hon. and learned Gentleman's knowledge of country life must be very small, and, therefore, in a competition between him and my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley for the Ministry of Agriculture the hon. Member for Don Valley ought to win by a good many lengths. I want to ask him one specific question. If his party is returned to power, will he, as Minister of Agriculture, first of all scrap the Agricultural Marketing Act as it is at the present moment; and. secondly, will he by his policy take away the good things which the Government have already given to the farmers of this country? No hon. or right hon. Gentleman on the Front Opposition Bench has made the position of the Socialist party clear in this respect. My hon. Friend reminded the House that there is a by-election in progress in the Rushcliffe Division, and I think the position ought to be made quite clear to the farmers in the Rushcliffe Division before polling
day. As it has not been made clear by my hon. Friend in this House, I hope that, in fairness to the farmers of Rushcliffe, the Socialist candidate in this by-election will make his position quite clear.
My hon. Friend also said that the organisation proposals in connection with the meat subsidy were not enough. I rather agree with him in that, but do not let us forget that these proposals are merely the vanguard of other proposals which are coming along. I am perfectly certain that, if I may use a military term, when my right hon. Friend brings up the main body of his proposals they will be better organised and better disciplined than perhaps the vanguard is at the present moment. Reading further the speech of the hon. Member for Don Valley, I find that he talked about the poor goose having to be plucked so that the rich peacock may live. That remark, of course, is completely untrue, and before I sit down I hope to prove to my hon. Friend that that is the case. He also made remarks about Noble Lords and juicy steaks. Remarks of that sort may be all very well when he is addressing his constituents in the Don Valley, but, if he does not mind my saying so, they are hardly worthy of an hon. Member who has the respect and admiration, and, if I may say so, the affection of every Member of this House. I dare-say a little spot of class hatred does not do you any harm when you are perched rather insecurely on the end of a soapbox; I do not know; but it does no honour to a man whom we all want to see, regardless of party, a respected and loved leader of the people in the future. Let me, therefore, if I can, get away from the sort of goose-and-peacock mentality into which my hon. Friend got, and try to argue the case for beef and for agriculture generally as dispassionately as I can.
I am glad to hear that this subsidy is not to be given to cow beef. I think that that is very wise. There is too much cow beef on the market in this country, and its elimination will allow the farmer to breed a better type of beef than he is breeding at present, with the result that better beef will be put on the market for the people of this country. I am one of those who believe that at the next election the Government will have to launch a big land settlement scheme, for
the very simple reason that nine-tenths of our people live in the towns, and no country can be a great country under those conditions. But I think it is quite obvious that it is no use putting people on the land until the land is made remunerative. It will be a perfect waste of time to launch a big land settlement scheme unless agricultural prices can be made once more remunerative. I believe it would be possible for the Government, under a big land settlement scheme, to put many thousands of people on to the land, which, of course, would be of the greatest benefit to the towns.
Let us see how that benefit would accrue. First of all, many thousands of men would be given new jobs, and not only that, but other industries would be given a great fillip as well. Think of the many articles that would be demanded in connection with a great land settlement scheme. First of all, many houses would be built, and there would be a tremendous demand for bricks., More slates would be wanted, more timber would be wanted, more iron and more glass would be wanted, and therefore more coal would be wanted—and we must remember that the mere getting of coal gives great scope to other industries. There would be an increased demand for artificial manures, tractors and horses, and also—and I say this because I have the honour to be the President of the Notes Rural Community Council—a great land settlement scheme would help tremendously the saddlers, the carpenters, and all those trades which are going through a very difficult time indeed, and which ought to be employed in connection with the industry of agriculture. Unless agriculture is made to pay, none of these benefits can be produced. Unless the beef trade is made to pay, the whole of agriculture will fall to the ground.
Let me return to my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley. He who represents miners as I do, knows perfectly well that under the new conditions many thousands of his constituents will never get back to the mines again. Why riot, therefore, try to put some of these miners upon the land? I understand that there are a good many miners on the land at the moment, but unless prices can be made remunerative it will be no use having a scheme to put the mine workers of this country into agriculture. By re-
munerative prices I do not mean that the prices necessarily go up. Even, however, if they do go up slightly, is it not better to put thousands of men ma the land in happy circumstances than to have them hanging about the towns as they are at present forced to do?
I wish to touch for a moment on the question of whether this subsidy will put up the price of food to the people. I am absolutely convinced that it will not. I do not mind the subsidy for two reasons. If it is to be paid by the taxpayer, on the whole the rich man will be helping in a very admirable cause; but if the money is to be collected in the future from the Dominions and from the Argentine, I am perfectly certain that the cost of living will not go up, because the £3,000,000 will be purely an addition paid by the Dominions over and above the ordinary price paid by the consumer.
To return once more to the hon. Member for Don Valley. The hon. Member coined the expression that my right hon. Friend ought to be called the Minister of Scarcity. I ask my hon. Friend to cast his mind back to the years 1929 to 1931. When the Tory Government left off, the unemployed numbered 1,250,000 men, women and children. When my hon. Friend's party left off, there were nearly 3,000,000 unemployed. He is a very fair person, and I am sure that if he casts his mind back to those years he will withdraw that rather amusing sneer which he made at my right hon. Friend's expense and own, as three-quarters of us own in this House, that my right hon. Friend is doing his honest, able and level best to bring prosperity once more back to an industry which is fully deserving of it.

7.4 p.m.

Mr. DUCKWORTH: I so rarely venture to address the House that I feel that it is almost necessary for me to pray the indulgence that is accorded to a maiden speaker. I wish in a very few words to give my support to the Bill which we are discussing this afternoon, and which is designed as an emergency Measure to meet an extremely critical situation. I represent a constituency which is a market town and so is vitally interested, both directly and indirectly, in the livestock industry. The case for taking some immediate action is so overwhelming and
has already been stressed so far, that it is quite unnecessary for me to bring further evidence of the critical situation which is at present confronting not only the producers but many hundreds of persons in my constituency who depend upon the livestock industry for their livelihood. We have heard this afternoon a good deal on the subject of the reorganisation of the industry. I have no doubt that reorganisation is necessary, as was foreshadowed in the White Paper that has been issued by the Government. I must confess, however, that I remain profoundly sceptical as to how much can be accomplished through reorganisation towards lessening the margin between the price that the producer receives and the price that the consumer has to pay. I am certainly convinced that if, as hon. Members opposite would no doubt advocate, the whole distribution were centred in a State organisation, the margin that would exist would be even greater than it is at present.
Hon. Members opposite may talk of reorganisation and go into the Lobby against this Bill. Surely, however, nobody seriously believes that reorganisation by itself can go very far towards restoring a remunerative price level. I believe that no Government could possibly have remained inactive in face of the present situation, taking into account the fact that the livestock industry is one of the pivots of the whole agricultural situation. There has been some argument this afternoon as to whether these proposals comprise a subsidy or not. I accept the fact quite frankly that this money is a subsidy, and I believe that there are no practical alternatives to the proposals contained in this Bill. They are, in fact, made inevitable both by the Ottawa and by the Argentine Agreements. However much we may dislike a policy of accumulating subsidies to the agricultural industry, I believe that it is at present the only way out of a desperate situation. The House has been informed that this money will be repaid from the proceeds of a levy on imported meat which will be the subject of future legislation. Whatever form this levy may take, the fact remains that so far as this Debate is concerned we are proposing to apply a subsidy to meet the present situation. It is certainly a subsidy in the sense that this money will be found directly or indirectly by the whole community. This
particular subsidy is fully justified as a temporary measure, though I must confess that I have some apprehension as to the administrative difficulties that may be encountered in administering this scheme.
There is one other aspect of these proposals on which I should like to say few words only. The Minister is faced with an immensely difficult problem, that of fostering and maintaining the agricultural industry of this country and ensuring that it shall continue to give employment to at least the number of persons who are at present engaged in it. He is faced with that problem in a world that has gone so mad that it appears to imagine that it is possible to carry on international trade in a market where there are only sellers. He is faced with two obvious difficulties. First, in any action he takes he runs some risk of inflicting damage on the vital exporting industries of this country. Secondly, at the present level of world prices there is scarcely an agricultural commodity which can be produced in this country without the protection of a subsidy, a tariff or a quota. In these circumstances it is essential that we should concentrate on those branches of agriculture to which this country is most suited.
I believe that the vast majority of the people of this country recognise those facts and acknowledge the supreme importance of maintaining the agricultural industry. I believe that they will only continue to support the present policy of the Government, and to pay the price that these subsidies make necessary, on two conditions. The first is that the industry should be properly organised, and the second is that, where the device of a subsidy is applied, the subsidies shall bear some reasonable relation to one another. We have applied the device of a subsidy to wheat and milk, and for the last 10 years we have voted annually large sums of money to maintain the sugar-beet industry. It would certainly be out of order for me to discuss this afternoon the merits or otherwise of that particular subsidy. I should merely like to say that in comparing the sugar-beet industry with the livestock industry there is surely no question whatever that the livestock industry is by far the more important of the two. Under normal conditions there are few countries that are
better suited than this, through climate and other conditions, to the production of cattle. This is an industry that we cannot in any circumstances allow to languish. The sugar-beet industry, on the other hand, has been created purely by subsidy, and it is now quite clear that without a subsidy it can never survive.
It is time that we in this House showed some better sense of proportion in dealing with these questions. 'We are faced with some difficulty in considering agricultural questions, because although we consider from time to time various proposals that are brought forward to deal with various branches of the industry, the opportunities that occur for considering agricultural policy as a whole are extremely limited. I believe that nothing could be more fantastic than that we should go on voting, year after year, these large sums for an industry like the sugar-beet industry, and yet that the greatest reluctance should be shown when proposals are introduced on the lines of this Bill. If reluctance had not been shown, action would have been taken a long time ago on similar lines. I support these proposals, because I believe that they are essential if the industry is to be saved from collapse, and I shall not hesitate to go into the Lobby in support of the Bill.

7.14 p.m.

Mr. TREE: First of all, I should like, on behalf of my constituents and many others in the livestock industry, to congratulate the Government on the action they are proposing to take, and to say that bankruptcy has for two years been facing the livestock industry. At the same time, I should like to utter a word of warning. The sum of 5s. a cwt., aggregating £3,000,000, must seem to hon. Members who are not conversant with the livestock industry to be a very large sum of money. We must remember what a tremendous part livestock
plays in agriculture. It represents nearly 40 per cent. of the total and is nearly twice as great again as the whole of the dairy industry. When you take such industries as wheat, which only constitutes 5 per cent. of our agriculture, or fruit and vegetables, which respectively only amount to about 4 per cent., one sees how important it is that the livestock industry should be supported and saved. It is important that the
quantitative regulations which the Minister intends to put on should be so severe that there should be no drop in prices. The autumn glut comes into force in September, and it is very much feared in my part of the world that it will come earlier this year owing to the lack of food and also to the drought. If it does, animals will very soon be put on to the market, which may cause a drop in prices and take away all the effect that this subsidy is intended to have. Therefore, it seems to me of the utmost importance that my right hon. Friend should see that quantitative regulations are enforced at the earliest possible date.
I wonder if it would not be possible to do something on the lines of what is being already so admirably tried out in the bacon industry. A figure of probable consumption has been ascertained. It has then been ascertained how much can be produced at home, and the rest is being allotted out to the exporting countries. Could not that be done in the case of livestock? In regard to the long-term policy, I am very glad that the Minister hopes to introduce a levy scheme. That is a scheme which has been worked out in my part of the country by some very hard-headed producers themselves, and, consequently, I think it can be called a definite producers' scheme. I was a very early convert to it, and I spent a considerable time in trying to ascertain the views not only of producers but of all sections of the livestock industry. I was not able to find any serious criticism, but I found a great deal of approval among all sections of the industry, from the producers right through to the retailers.
The pity is that it cannot be put into effect immediately. I do not like mortgaging my own income in advance, and it seems to me that that is the sort of thing that is being done now. This subsidy is mortgaging the future income which is to come in from the levy. We are given to understand that the reason is that the Dominions refuse at present to understand and appreciate our difficulty. There is no one who is stronger on inter-Imperial trade than I am. I think trade relations within the Empire are going to play a great part in future. At the same time we cannot allow our own home industry to go bankrupt. We cannot allow the men employed in it to
become unemployed. The principle was clearly enunciated at Ottawa that the home market should get the first chance, the Dominions should get the second, and the foreigner the third, but it seems to me that in the case of meat that has been entirely reversed. It is the foreigner who has had the first chance, and we have come out very much last.
There is going to be a need over the next two years to work out a long-range policy for agriculture. I consider that what we have been doing up to the present is merely internal reconstruction of the industry. In that long-term policy the Dominions must needs play a very great part. We have to get to understand their problems and their needs, and the same thing applies to them. They have to understand our problems and our needs. It is in my opinion a very great pity that at present they have failed to understand and to come to an agreement which means so very much to our agriculture. I hope that our extremely tactful and efficient Minister of Agriculture may be able to persuade them in the next six months to see our present needs, and that this subsidy will not have to continue for an indefinite period, because a levy scheme is obviously a better one than a subsidy. I should like to say how much I am in agreement with the speech of the Noble Lord the Member for Newark (Marquess of Titchfield) about the need for land settlement in the future. It is going to play a very great part in the next few years. I do not think anyone will deny that, if only agriculture is put on its feet, it will be possible to get more people employed in it than any other industry in the land to-day.

7.22 p.m.

Sir ERNEST SHEPPERSON: I support and thank the right hon. Gentleman for this Measure. It embodies his short-time policy. It is an emergency Bill which gives the producer of meat some 5s. per live cwt. or 9s. per dead cwt. on certain types of cattle between next September and March of next year. We hope that during that period the Minister may be successful in carrying out negotiations with the Dominions and with the Argentine and that this Bill may he superseded by one putting forward the long-term policy. We all realise the parlous position of the meat-producing industry, and I am confident that Members on the
Opposition benches realise it equally. I have never been one of those who accuse Members of the official Opposition of caring nothing or knowing nothing of agriculture. I have often listened to their speeches, and I feel that they have the interests of agriculture at heart. I realise that the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) and the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. D. Grenfell) in particular desire to help to bring some prosperity to the industry. We are alike there. We may differ as to the methods by which we propose to bring about that prosperity, but I often wonder whether we differ as much as we appear to do. When the Minister has been bringing forward some of his measures beneficial to agriculture, I have watched the faces of hon. Members opposite, and I have observed that in their heart of hearts they would like to support them, but suddenly they realise that they are sitting on the Front Opposition Bench and that it is the duty of an opposition to oppose. They seek some loophole in the Minister's proposals, and I sympathise with them because I know how very few loopholes he leaves for them. My sympathy is not lessened because of my personal regard for those two hon. Members.
The hon. Member for Herefordshire (Mr. J. P. Thomas) and I have been insistent in our appeals to the Minister to do something to help the livestock industry. I have many times felt ashamed at the extent to which I have worried him, but it is only by importunity that one obtains anything, and at long last I have received a reward for my importunity. We have worried the Minister because we were trying to do our duty to our constituents. Herefordshire is almost entirely agricultural. Every man and woman—agricultural labourer, farmer, landlord, tradesman, professional man, whoever he is—depends almost entirely, directly or indirectly, upon agriculture for his livelihood. When I speak on agriculture, when I bore the House on agriculture, I want hon. Members to think that I am trying to do my bit for my constituency, and I want them to forgive me for boring them.

It being Half-past Seven of the Clock, and there being Private Business set doom by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means under Standing Order No. 8, further Proceeding was postponed, without Question put.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

TYNE IMPROVEMENT BILL [Lords] (By Order).

Order for the Third Reading read. [King's Consent signified.]

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."

7.30 p.m.

Mr. LAWS0N: I apologise to the House for interfering with the regular course of business, but I assure hon. Members that the matter to which I want to call attention will not take long. I and my hon. Friends who are responsible for raising the question are in entire agreement with the general objects of the Bill, but in the composition of the Commission provided for in the Bill, no provision is made whatever for the representation of the workers. I wish that we had been able to put this matter before the Committee which dealt with the Bill. The miners' organisation in Durham drew my attention to this matter some months ago, and I made inquiries as to when the Bill was likely to be introduced. I discovered that it was likely to be introduced in another place, and I took what steps I could to keep in contact with its progress, but, unfortunately, owing to the general trend of business, I was not able to raise this matter before the Bill had gone through the Report stage in this House. My hon. Friends and I who are taking an active interest in the matter are usually able to keep in step with the business of the House, but we have been connected with Committees generally and have not had an opportunity of directing attention to this Bill.
One of the main objects of the Bill is to make arrangements for the proportion of interests to be represented on the commission and also for the method of their election. The councils of Newcastle, Gateshead, Tynemouth, South Shields, Jarrow and Wallsend are to have among them 16 representatives upon the Commission, and of the 15 representatives of other interests, five are to be elected by shipowners, five by coalowners, and five by traders, making 31 representatives in all. There are to be two co-opted commissioners.
It seems to us at this time of day that, in dealing with matters concerning a great river upon which the products of
the industries round about are shipped, the workers in those industries should have some representation upon the commission, to say nothing about workers generally. If we take the Port of London as a model, it will be found that there are usually two workers' representatives on their elected bodies. I do not know whether the Minister of Transport is to given an answer on this matter, but we believe that we are making such a reasonable claim, particularly when there are to be five representatives of the coal owners, of the shipowners and of the traders, that some undertaking ought to be given. Out of all that vast industrial area the particular people who are not to be represented at all are those who are as much interested in the trade of the North as any of the other people who are to sit upon the commission. I should have thought that at this time of day the commissioners themselves, or those who are at present responsible for the craft on the River, for the carriage of commodities and for the general success of trade would have taken the initiative in recommending the appointment of workers' representatives on the commission. This has not been done, and we have to adopt the unusual procedure to-night of stating our case on the Motion for the Third Reading of the Bill, which has been introduced for the better government, and generally for the improvement of conditions on the river.
I do not know whether the Minister of Transport or the Chairman of Ways and Means has responsibility in this matter, but I would ask whether it is not possible to recommit the do not think it would take long to come to an understanding—with the object of arrangements being made to secure the representation of miners on the commission. Alternatively, would it not be possible to make arrangements to enable a representative of the miners to be co-opted on the commission? Is it not in keeping with modern times that, on a commission set, up in this way to deal with public interests, the interests of employe should be represented? It is indefensible that the workers in this great industrial area should be totally un-recognised. It may be said that this matter was not raised in the proper way and that it is too late. I trust that someone will give an answer before we
are asked to come to a decision on the Third Reading of the Bill.

7.40 p.m.

Mr. BATEY: I have been wondering who is to reply on behalf of the promoters of the Bill. There ought to be somebody to speak for them. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why?"] Because it would be in keeping with custom in these debates. Many Private Bills have been challenged at 7.30 in the evening as this Bill is being challenged, and there has always been someone prepared to speak on behalf of the promoters of those Bills. I wish to support the statements which have been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson). We are at a disadvantage in having to debate this question on the Third Reading, but we are to be more pitied than blamed or condemned. Last Friday morning I was present in the House, but I did not happen to pick up my Order Paper soon enough. When I did so, I was surprised to find that this Bill had been placed upon the Order Paper for that day. I think that notice should be given when Private Bills are to be put upon the Order Paper, so that those who are interested in them may be here in order, if necessary, to take exception to them. I confess that we missed the opportunity last Friday, and, although we are raising the matter now, we do not really want to delay the Third Reading of the Bill, nor do we desire to force a Division. I do not know whether it is possible to recommit the Bill, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street has suggested, but, if not, there is still the other course open which he pointed out. The House should remember that this is a Bill to alter the constitution of the Tyne Improvement Commission. We consider that when an alteration of such an important commission is to take place provision should be made for the workers to be represented upon the commission. The Bill makes no provision for representation by workers. The Tyne Improvement Commission employ, and are responsible for, a good many working men, and there ought to be at least one representative of the workers upon the commission.

Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMS: By workers' representatives, does the hon. Gentleman mean the people who work on the Tyneside, or the people who work in the pits, the coal from which is shipped from the Tyne?

Mr. BATEY: This matter has been raised by the Durham Miners' Association who come in close contact with the River Tyne. We are not so much pledged to a miner's representative so long as there are workers' representatives. If that were so, we should be satisfied.

Mr. PEARS0N: Is it not possible for workers representatives on municipal corporations along the river to secure representation on the commission?

Mr. BATEY: Yes, it is. I was for 20 years a member of a town council which is represented on the River Tyne Commission, and there was never a workers' representative allowed to sit upon that commission.

Colonel CHAPMAN: The town council of which the hon. Member was formerly a member has now a Labour man as one of its representatives on the Tyne Commission.

Mr. BATEY: I would ask the Government to remember that they are seeking to alter the representation on this Tyne Commission. That is the meaning of the Bill. The shipowners, coalowners and traders have representatives, and why should not the workers have one or two representatives? I know we are raising this on the Third Reading because we had not the privilege, of moving an Amendment on the Report stage, but we are simply proposing that the easiest course would be that the two members whom the commission has power to co-opt should be workers. That would satisfy us for the moment. The promoters of the Bill sent out a statement in which they stated in the last paragraph that all persons desiring any alteration in the constitution of the commission had had several opportunities of submitting their proposals to Parliament in accordance with the recognised procedure under the Standing Order dealing with private legislation by lodging a petition proposing the necessary Amendments in the Committee stage or opposing applications for permission. They submitted that a proposal for an alteration should not be allowed at the last stage of the Bill in the Second House. That gave me the impression that it was rather a reflection on my colleagues and myself who are raising this question. It may be perfectly true that petitions should have been lodged, but that does
not deprive any Member of this House of his rights. Any Member has a right at any stage, even the Third Reading, to criticise a Bill and, if necessary, to divide the House. We do not want to take that course to-night, but I want to repeat what my colleague has already urged, that the River Tyne Commission should take the opportunity, as they have the power of electing or appointing two co-opted members, of appointing two workers.

Lieut.-Colonel SANDEMANALLEN: Before the hon. Member sits down, will he say why it should be miners instead of sailors or seamen?

Mr. BATEY: I have said that we do not limit it to miners as long as they are workers.

7.50 p.m.

Mr. LAWSON: On a point of Order. Are we to be answered officially on this matter? I understood that somebody was going to speak from below. If the Chairman of Ways and Means is going to answer officially, it is all right. I take it that there is someone responsible to the House who can answer the case which has been put forward for workers' representation on the board.

Mr. SPEAKER: I do not know if the hon. Member is asking me that. I cannot be responsible for saying who is to reply for the Bill.

The CHAIRMAN of WAYS and MEANS (Sir Dennis Herbert): I think, perhaps, I ought to say a word or two. It is not for me to express an opinion as to what the representation should be on the Commission, but I do think it is my duty to point out to the House what would be the effect of any attempt such as the hon. Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey) suggested in the way of recommitting the Bill for further Amendment. When the Bill was first introduced—I am speaking from recollection, but I know I am substantially right—it was not proposed to alter the constitution of the Commission, but, as a result I think of some adjustment of boundaries or something of that kind, it was desired to alter the constitution, and as that was not one of the objects of the Bill, additional provisions had to be asked for and was allowed, and that alteration desired was dealt with. If any steps were to be taken now to make any further
[The Chairman of Ways and Means.] alteration of that kind, the same procedure would have to be gone through, and such action on the part of this House in recommitting the Bill in respect of this Clause or any part of it at this stage would have the effect of killing the Bill, because it would have to go through the machinery I have already referred to of a petition for additional provision, and it would have to be dealt with in another place as well as in this House. Therefore, while I aim not in any way authorised to express any opinion whatever on behalf of the promoters as to the merits of the case concerning the constitution of the Commission, I think it my duty to point out the result of any such interference with the Bill at its present stage. In saying that, I must not [...] understood to object to or to criticise in any way the right of hon. Members to express their views. That is not a question that arises. All I have to deal with is the result of any attempt to make any such alteration of the Bill at the present moment and that would be, as I say, to kill it. I do not think that is the wish of hon. Members who have spoken or of the House generally.

7.55 p.m.

Sir GEOFFREY ELLIS: I should like to point out that those of us who sat on the Committee can naturally deal only with questions that were brought before the Committee. The hon. Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey) said quite frankly that he missed his opportunity. I would remind him that his party took part in a discussion with the promoters on a question connected with the position of certain boatmen who work on the Tyne and that was a labour problem of very great interest to them. It is a little curious that he should not then have put forward the claims of the Miners' Federation to representation. At that time the question was settled without dispute, and the Bill passed to the Unopposed Bills Committee. It is not so easy as he suggests. Recommittal has been dealt with by the Chairman, but to ask for special representation of one particular Union without any reference back to the Commissioners who already exist can hardly be called fair. If you ask for a different sort of representation on the Tyne Commission or any similar body, the Commissioners should be in a position to examine it. There is at present a very
nice balance on the Commission. There are 16 representatives of the town council, and 16 representatives, not of definite trades so much as of dues payers on the river itself. The dues payers, in regard to coal, take as much interest as the men in the amount to be paid per ton, and, if you wish to make and change at all in the Commission, it would not be right to try to make a bargain with he Minister of Transport across the table at the last moment without giving the other people a chance of saying whether what is proposed to be done is fair. Hon. Members have had an opportunity in two Houses of putting their case before the Committee, and they have not done so. The Committee have taken the evidence and we have arrived at this stage, and it is not the time for an ex parte claim.

Mr. LAWSON: Are we to have no reply to the point put? Is it not possible to give the workers' interest some consideration in reference to this matter? I think we really ought to have an answer, and it is no answer to say that this is raised on the Third Reading, because, after all, the Third Reading is a material part of the proceedings as well as any other.

Sir G. ELLIS: You have town councillors popularly elected on one side, and the interests on the other have an equal share, including the two co-opted members. No doubt the Miners' Federation may claim to be considered just as the boatmen, but it is not right to attempt to force into the Bill or to suggest to the Minister of Transport that he should take in one particular interest at this last moment. If the whole matter is to be raised de novo to consider a new interest, all the others should be considered.

7.58 p.m.

Colonel CHAPMAN: If the proposal put forward by the hon. Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey) be adopted, why should not the Northumberland miners ask for a similar representation? They have missed the boat, if I may say so. If they had brought forward this proposal at the proper time, it is likely that the Tyne Commission would have accepted it, because, of the two co-opted members on the Commission at present, one is 'a representative of the workers. One of the representatives of the corporation of South Shields is a Labour man, and two other corporations between them supply three members of the Labour party on
the Tyne Commission. This Commission, framed as it has been framed for the last 80 years, has transformed a stream into a wonderful river. It has done magnificient work, and there has never been any suggestion that the workers' interest has not been given proper attention. I hope that this Bill will not be re-committed, because it contains provisions which are very necessary to the Commission, particularly in helping forward the improvement of the river so that some of the troubles from which the North-East coast are suffering may be lifted.

8.1 p.m.

Mr. THORNE: I am sorry that I was not in the House when the Debate started. I understand that my hon. Friend has been appealing to the Minister of Transport to elect a representative of the miners. It appears to me that the Minister of Transport, who has power to elect two members for life, can help us. If he wants to get over the difficulty suggested by the hon. Member for Winchester (Sir G. Ellis), he might, before he elects these two members, put himself into communication with the organised workers concerned. It does not follow that because the municipalities have the right to elect 16 representatives any of them will be representatives of organised labour. It all depends on the composition of the local authorities. The Minister of Transport could get us out of this difficulty if he would kindly call together the representatives of the organised workers, that is to say, of the colliery workers and the dockers, and of a union like mine, because my organisation has a large number of men working on the quay-side. If the Minister would be good enough to consult the organised workers, it will simplify the matter without very much trouble.

8.3 p.m.

The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Hore-Belisha): This is a private Bill, and I am completely in the hands of Parliament. It has passed through all its stages, and it emerges in a form which leaves me the discretion to appoint two Members to this Commission as and when the present life members either die or resign. Of the two Members whom the Minister of Transport can appoint, one is already a representative of the workers. I shall not bind myself, and I cannot 'bind my successors, to exercise my dis-
cretion in any particular manner, but I respond most readily to the appeal which has been made to me, and I shall take note, if it should fall to my lot to appoint another commissioner, of the case which has been presented this evening. I do not think the House can expect me to go further than that. In other cases where I have power to appoint to a harbour or river commission it has been the custom of my predecessors, I understand, to consult with the Minister of Labour as to a suitable representative of the workers in proper cases, and I shall follow that procedure. I trust that that will satisfy hon. Members.

CATTLE INDUSTRY (EMERGENCY PROVISIONS) BILL.

Postponed Proceeding resumed on Amendment to Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

8.5 p. m.

Sir E. SHEPPERSON: When I was interrupted by the Private Business I was endeavouring to point out that the constituency which I represent was very much concerned in the Bill before the House. Hereford is grassland rather than arable, and, owing to its distance from large consuming centres, it has been given up to stock raising and beef production in preference to the production of milk. Hereford is the home of the famous Hereford cattle, and I submit to the House that there is no county which has suffered more from the collapse of meat prices than that county. Month after month at the market of Hereford and other local markets there has been a fall of meat and cattle prices. It is not unnatural that my constituents should lose heart. I have to the best of my ability attempted to keep up their spirits. I have pointed out to them that it is the intention of the Minister and of the Government to bring back some prosperity to agriculture, but all in due order —arable first and then grassland, wheat and then meat. The wheat problem has received the attention of the Government
and the wheat growers are gratified for the assistance that has been given to them.
Now the Government have given their attention to meat. In their wisdom, realising that this colossal fall in meat prices has been due to the world unloading its surplus meat into this country, the Government have adopted the policy of a quantitative limitation of imports of meat into this country; hence, the Ottawa Agreements and the agreements with the Argentine. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spark-brook (Mr. Amery) referred to the two Walters in the Cabinet. I can imagine that in the discussions on these two agreements the Minister of Agriculture who is our Walter and the other Walter were not quite desiring the same thing, and that there were certain antagonisms between them, but I have always backed our Walter in agricultural matters. The House and the Minister know that I would have preferred the more simple and understandable import duties to the rather complicated phrase "quantitative limitation of imports." We are not very materially concerned, however, about what method is adopted so long as the method brings the results that are required, namely, an improvement in the price to the British producer. The application of quotas has been tried, but we have seen this fall in prices month after month, and our people have suffered keen disappointment, and I know that the Minister has too. Our people were losing confidence in the Minister, but I was not. I recognised that he was a man who translated his words into deeds; and you test a man by his acts. not by his words. My confidence in the Minister was maintained, and to-day, owing to this Bill, my confidence has been justified.
In his speech on the Financial Resolution, the Minister rightly said that he had to bear in mind three alternative solutions of this problem. One was a drastic limitation of imports, which he recognised would cause considerable trouble in the Dominions. Another objection which he did not mention was that if he applied such a drastic limitation of imports as would be necessary to raise the prices of the British produce, it might increase the cost of living. The second course was by agreement to place
a levy on imported meat, the proceeds of the levy being used to assist the home producer. The third course was a moderate restriction of imports coupled with the levy, the latter to be used to supplement the price received by the home producer. The Minister has accepted the third course, and I want to express my gratitude to him for having done that. For 2½ years, ever since the National Government came into office, I have advocated a policy of a moderate duty upon meat. Two years ago I moved an Amendment to take meat out of the Free List in the Import Duties Act and to make it subject to a 10 per cent. duty. I received the reply from the President of the Board of Trade that, if my Amendment were carried, it would mean a tax upon meat and would raise the price of meat and would be harmful to the industrial part of the country.
Since that time a great deal of water has flowed under London Bridge. The Government have been able to gain knowledge by experience. Conditions have altered, and since that time there has been such a colossal fall in meat prices that the policy of the Government to-day is to raise the wholesale price of meat, in the interests not only of the British producer, but of the Empire producer. When a few months ago I again suggested that an import duty should be placed upon foreign meat, I had the reply that it would not do what I wanted, and would not raise the wholesale price of meat. Two years ago they could not accept an import duty on meat, because it would raise the price of meat. A few months ago they could not accept it because it would not raise the price of meat. What was I to think? I had to accept it, but I still kept on advocating my policy of an import duty, and to-day that has more or less been accepted.
I can realise what has happened in the conversation between the two Ministers, the Minister of Agriculture and the President of the Board of Trade, our Walter and the other Walter. The other Walter said to our Walter: "I made a mistake when I told that fellow Shepperson that an import duty on foreign meat would raise the price. We have seen by our experience in Ireland that it does not raise the price." I can hear our Walter saying to the other Walter: "Under those conditions, will you not have a small import duty placed upon meat,
which will create a fund from which I can help the distressed home producer of meat?" The other Walter replied: "Good, I will agree to it, but for the sake of old times, for the sake of past events, cannot we call that import duty by another name? Would it not be helpful if we could call it a levy?" Our Walter replied: "I do not mind by what name you call it so long as we can have the fruits of the levy." That course has been agreed upon, and the two Walters, who were at one time in opposition, are now shaking each other by the hand, and we of the agricultural community are shaking the hands of both of them in gratitude for what they have given to us.
The Minister has brought forward the policy of a levy but it cannot be applied until the Dominions and the Argentine have agreed to its application, and during the waiting period we are having this Bill as an emergency Measures What is going to happen if there is no successful termination of the conversations between the Dominions and this country? I would suggest to my right hon. Friend that in his policy of quantitative limitation of imports, restricting the imports from foreign countries, he raises the price not merely of the meat of the home producer but the price of the meat of the foreign importer, he gives a present by his policy to the foreign importer sending his meat into this country. That gift is made to the importer of meat into this country. If those importers refuse to submit to the levy which the right hon. Gentleman desires, I respectfully suggest that he should no longer make a present to the importers of meat into this country but that he should apply such a levy, which can be raised or lowered according to circumstances, as to make a present not to the foreign importer but to the home producer of meat.
In making this suggestion I am at a disadvantage. I am, unfortunately, possessed of simple rural intelligence. I am entirely untrained in high finance, but to my rural mind I have never been able to understand why we are better off by giving than by receiving. I have always understood that it is more blessed to give than to receive, but I thought that that was a moral idea and not a financial one. I have always failed to understand why if, for instance, by quantitative regulations we make a present of £500 to a Dutchman and the
Dutchman then buys from us a motor car, we should thank that Dutchman for
the service he has rendered to this country in buying a motor car from us with the £500 that we have given to him. It seems to me that the Dutchman has gat the best of the bargain. He gets a motor car that he has not possessed before and we have had the trouble of paying for it. If the acceptance of a gift of a motor car is to be regarded as a service rendered to our country, then I will serve my country as well as any Dutchman. I am prepared to receive a motor car every year from the Government, and I feel confident that many other hon. Members would be glad to serve their country in a similar way.
I suggest to the Minister that he should consider very seriously how best to work the levy system. The one outstanding successful Measure passed by the present Government has been the Wheat Act. The application of quantitative limitation of imports has not been successful. I would suggest that in regard to meat my right hon. Friend should adopt more and more the levy principle as applied in the Wheat Act and less and less the quantitative limitation of imports. If the Dominions and the Argentine cannot come to an agreement with us because it is contrary to their trade agreements to have a levy, I would ask the Minister to consider whether it is not possible to have an internal levy, exactly as under
the Wheat Act, upon not only imported meat but meat produced in this country and from that fund to give the British producer of meat a guaranteed figure, which is done to wheat producers under the Wheat Act. As meat producers we are not concerned as to the quantities of meat imported or the price. What we are concerned about is that we should have such a return for the meat which we produce as is adequate for the work that we have put into it. If the placing of a levy on imported meat is a success I suggest to my right hon. Friend that he should go further and apply it to manufactured milk products which are imported, and later on to eggs which come into the country. As an agriculturist I express my gratitude to the Minister for the energetic action that he has taken and for having converted into acts the words that he used when he promised to help the agricultural industry. I support
the Bill as an emergency Measure, and trust that when the right hon. Gentleman introduces his long-term policy he will meet with a success which will earn the gratitude of the agricultural community.

8.25 p.m.

Sir THOMAS ROSBOTHAM: I support the Second Reading of the Bill because I feel it is the duty of the Government to try and balance out every branch of the agricultural industry so that there will be one successful whole. The object of the policy of the Government is to bring success to the rural areas, and they are now making an honest attempt to retrieve the livestock industry and provide more employment. I come from an arable and a horticultural district, and I support the Bill because I believe every attempt should be made to bring prosperity to every branch of agriculture. The means test has been mentioned during the Debate. It has been said that if you are going to give a subsidy farmers should have a means test. I contend that the farmer has a. means test. He has the Income Tax; that is a means test. He has another means test, the weather; and still another, the diseases to which plants and animals are subject. All these are among the difficulties which the farmer and his worker have to contend with. He has still another means test. 1 know farmers and their families who have worked their holding for years and never made any money. We have been told that we have neglected the agricultural worker, but it is quite plain that if the agricultural worker's position is to be improved that prosperity must first come to the industry. The question of an increase in spending power has been mentioned. In 1931 there was a financial crisis, the spending power of the people was in jeopardy. The National Government have done their best to retrieve that spending power, to stabilise finance, and in so doing have averted a great disaster.
The subsidy, in my opinion, should be confined to animals not exceeding 2½ years of age. I say that because we want a quicker turnover in agriculture. The great fault of agriculture is that it is a slow turnover. The object of the Government is to get a quicker turnover. This is also important because in these days there is a demand for a smaller joint, it is not the large joint that is
wanted. The Bill will help to create the smaller joint. I go further, I would limit the subsidy to cattle which are reared and fed at home. The Bill will bring another advantage, it will increase the number of cattle on the land and increase the consumption of more home-grown products. To-day it is impossible to find a market for hay; the Bill will find additional markets for it. It will also increase the supplies of farmyard manure, which is still the best fertiliser in spite of all the artificial manures which have been produced.
I agree that any State grant should be given on condition that the industry organises itself and becomes efficient. I maintain that the Bill provides in Clause 4 for organisation, because when the cattle committee is set up its duty is to organise and regulate. Surely that should be a sufficient guarantee that under the Bill we are going to have organisation and regulation. I do not agree with waiting; it is disastrous. Many of us are getting impatient about the poultry industry and are waiting for the report so that the poultry industry can organise and regulate the distribution of its products. In these days we hear much about the preservation of rural England and its beauties, and I am sure the House will agree with me that there is nothing more beautiful in our countryside than the herds of British cattle. What is there more beautiful than a herd of Herefords, or a herd of Friesians or Shorthorns, among the green pastures. These are the beauties which we should try to maintain in our rural districts. The Bill I say is worthy of support not only because it promotes the welfare of agriculture but also because it encourages the preservation of the beauties of our countryside.

8.31 p.m.

Mr. PALING: The hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir T. Rosbotham), like many other speakers, has objected to the reference to the means test and suggests that it is not fair to say that farmers have no means test. The hon. Member says that they have the Income Tax. Suppose I accept that. If he will take the present means test applied to the unemployed who are receiving transitional benefit and substitute the means test of the Income Tax, I am sure that the unemployed would be pleased. They would not grumble like the farmers.

Sir T. ROSBOTHAM: I am in sympathy with the unemployed and I think that the policy of the present Government has tended to find work for more unemployed.

Mr. PALING: The fact that more people are now being employed is not due to the policy of the Government but to the fact that we went off the gold standard. When we were on the gold standard the number of unemployed went up, when we came off the gold standard the number came down. Many hon. Members during the Debate have talked about a, prosperous industry. I am wondering whether we are to have a new principle, that a prosperous industry is a subsidised industry; that if an industry like farming or cattle raising is half bankrupt and has to have a subsidy of £3,000,000, to be continued as a levy for ever, or at least for an indeterminate period, in order to bring prosperity to the industry, that you are to call it an economically prosperous industry Is that the new definition of a prosperous industry? One hon. Member a supporter of the Government took quite a different line. There are shipping, mining, steel and cotton and wool, all in a desperate economic plight, much worse than the cattle industry finds itself in at the present moment. But they have not got subsidies.
It is true that the steel industry has an import duty for which it asked, but the mining industry has not got one. We had a £25,000,000 subsidy in 1925, for which we did not ask. We had asked For very different treatment, and after the subsidy had been spent what then? We were told, "You must be put upon an economic basis; you must cut your losses." We got an eight hours day; our wages were put at a minimum, where they have remained ever since. Shipping has just got a subsidy, but wool and cotton and all the rest of the industries have got nothing. It was one of the Government supporters who prophesied that this subsidy instead of bringing prosperity to farming would in the long run bring ruination. I do not know whether it will or not. I carry my mind back to 1922, when I first came to the House. The persistent cry of our political opponents then was, "Keep your hands off industry. Let industry alone. We can manage our own business
without you." What a tremendous change to-day. The most dominant feature of this House is the constant pressure, day after day and week after week, to compel the Government to give financial help of some description to industries which it is said are half bankrupt. The cry of our opponents now is, "Let industry belong to us. If we make a profit it is ours, but if we make a loss we ask the Government to make it up to us."
The hon. Member for Leominster (Sir E. Shepperson) said just now, "After wheat we said meat." Every day there are one or two hon. Members, very insistent, who are putting pressure on the Government in connection with poultry and eggs. When the pressure reaches a certain point the Minister gives way and the Members get what they want. The hon. Member is very nice about the whole business. He does not now say, "The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Agriculture," but "Our Walter." That is understandable. Hon. Members can afford to be friendly with the Minister. But the Minister is a bit afraid. If the people on whom it is intended to put a levy do not agree, it is suggested that the Minister should do something else very drastic to them, that he should put a duty on and give it to the people in the livestock industry. So that if at the end of the seven months period of the subsidy the thing that is visualised by the Minister does not happen hon. Members advise him what to do in order that the subsidy may continue.

Sir E. SHEPPERSON: I am sure the hon. Member does not desire to misrepresent me. My point was that if the Dominions and the Argentine, under the various agreements made with them at Ottawa and elsewhere, do not consent to a levy on the importation of their goods, I suggested that we could get over that difficulty by an internal levy placed upon all meat produced, both British and imported, exactly similar to the levy that is put on under the Wheat Act, and that thus a fund could be built up to give assistance to the home producer of meat.

Mr. PALING: The hon. Member's policy is that if after the lapse of seven months the scheme of the Minister does not succeed, and we cannot get the money from the foreigner, we shall make the home consumer pay. In other words the
hon. Member does not care where the money comes from so long as it comes and is continued.

Sir E. SHEPPERSON: I apologise for interrupting again. A friend of the hon. Member has stated that meat is being sold to-day at ls. 4d. a pound when the producer is getting only seven-pence. There is ample margin between the seven-pence and the ls. 4d. for that penny levy to be paid without raising in the least the price paid for meat by the consumer.

Mr. PALING: If there is an ample margin why does not the Minister follow the policy of the hon. Member for East Fulham (Mr. Wilmot) instead of the present policy? While hon. Members on the Government side may feel happy about the present state of things and the ease with which they are getting this money, I suggest to them that the public is getting a bit disturbed. Even newspapers which always subscribe to the policy of the Tory party are beginning to be disturbed as to whether this continuous subsidising is not likely to have a very bad reaction in a very short time on the public, and whether in the endeavour to get all they can out of the National Government the farmers may not smash the whole business. I have tried to prepare a list of the things that have been done for agriculture. The more there is given to agriculture the more agriculture asks for. Rates were wiped off agricultural land altogether. It was suggested at the time that that would make all the difference between a prosperous and an unprosperous industry. But it did not make much difference to the demands of the farmers who still kept asking for more. After rates there was the beet-sugar scheme, then schemes dealing with hops and bacon—which sent up the price of bacon—then £5,000,000 a year for wheat; then the question of the subsidy for milk, and now there is meat, and as an hon. Member opposite said, they are asking, "What next?"
Where is it all to stop? Does the Minister think that the urban consumer of all these things is going to sit quietly by and calmly pay all this money? There was an hon. Member who was most frank about it and who alarmed the Minister by his frankness. He said it was "the siller," the money, and he added, "This is only a token payment." He is expect-
ing something very much bigger and better and more continuous in the future. We want to see a prosperous agriculture. We admit that it is one of the biggest of our industries. We admit that you cannot have a prosperous country without a prosperous agriculture. I would like to see the industry extended and more men employed in it but we suggest that the method proposed by the Government is the wrong method and that it will probably end in destroying all the hopes which hon. Members opposite have of getting a prosperous agriculture in the near future.
I wish to put one or two points to the Minister arising out of what has been said this evening. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery) said that if imports went down the meat industry would expand. Is it the policy of this subsidy and of what may follow, not only to make the industry prosperous at the present level of meat production, but also to expand that production in the future? My point is this: We are supposed to be suffering from over-production. If this policy results in an extension of the industry and in more people producing meat, will it not defeat itself The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Orr-Ewing) in an excellent maiden speech said that lots of people had gone out of stockraising into milk-producing, because milk-producing at the time was more prosperous and he suggested the possibility that the result of this subsidy would be to attract those people back into beef-producing from milk-producing. When those people turned from beef-producing to milk-producing the result was that they produce a surplus of milk. Now apparently they are to be attracted back to beef-producing and they will produce another surplus, this time a surplus of beef. I wish to ask the Minister whether he has visualised all these possibilities and whether he had them in mind when he proposed this subsidy.
My last point is this. Even if it is now too late to appeal to the Government to alter the proposals now before the House I hope that in their long-term policy they are not going to stick to the principle which the Minister is laying down in this Bill. To put upon imported meat, which is mainly eaten by the poorer people, an increase of at least one penny per lb. for the purpose of bringing in
this money is the wrong method to pursue. It is not pair and I cannot help feeling that the arguments on this point which have been put forward from these benches, have had some effect on some hon. Members opposite. I am sure those hon. Members would not willingly impose a burden on the poorest section of the community in order to help themselves and I am sure that many of the harmers to-day do not stand in need of any such help. There may be others who need assistance but I suggest that the method proposed here is based on a vicious principle. If this matter is put to the electorate, if the people get to know that after all that has already been done for farming they are expected to pay more, out of the miserably low wages which they receive to-day, for meat which at present they can hardly afford; if they know that they are expected to do this in order to subsidise English meat, it will have a disastrous effect upon hon. Members themselves when they go to the country to seek the sufferage of the electors. If the Minister cannot see his way to withdraw the Bill, I hope he will at least give the House a promise that he does not propose to continue this principle in any future policy on which the Government may decide.

8.50 p.m.

Lord WILLOUGHBY de ERESBY: I rise in company with other Members who represent constituencies where the livestock industry is carried on, to express my gratitude to my right hon. Friend the Minister, for the tireless manner in which he has worked to put this branch of farming on its feet again. It seems but a short time since I was standing here making my maiden speech in support of his effort to improve the then serious situation which was confronting the livestock farmers. The action which he took then and the action which he took at a later date, were unfortunately not attended by the results which we all desired. The dice have been loaded against my right hon. Friend. Unforeseen factors over which he had no control, such as the spell of exceptionally hot weather which has led to an enormous decline in meat consumption, have proved too strong for him, but my right hon. Friend is not yet beaten. He has shown a dogged resolution not to chuck up the sponge—a spirit of determination which, I am sure, must compel the admiration
even of the hon. Gentlemen opposite who are his political opponents and which inspires the utmost confidence in a humble back-bencher like myself, who has been sent here to see that, at least in this Parliament., the agricultural community gets a square deal.
We know now that when a matter is said to be receiving the earnest and careful consideration of the Minister of Agriculture that does not mean that the matter in question will be pigeon-holed or sidetracked. We know that it means that action will be taken. On this occasion my right hon. Friend has taken the only course which was open to him. At this moment he is unable to put into operation any long term policy, nor do I altogether regret the fact. Here we have a branch of agriculture which is the keystone and foundation of the whole industry. One false step here, one move in the wrong direction might spell disaster. When the taxpayer realises this fact I am sure he will not "grouse" at having to pay up for two years and thus give time to my right hon. Friend—who, through his own keen desire to bring prosperity to all branches of agriculture, has been very hard worked of late—to think over and sleep upon any permanent policy which is contemplated for the ultimate salvation of the industry. What is more I ask my right hon. Friend in all seriousness to avail himself of this opportunity of quiet contemplation and any suggestions or criticisms or indications of possible dangers which I may make are made with a genuine desire to see that the very best and nothing but the best is done for all concerned in this industry.
I am as anxious as hon. Gentlemen opposite to see an improvement in the conditions of the agricultural labourer. In fact I am even more anxious than the majority of them in that respect, because I depend for my continuance here upon the support of agricultural labourers, unlike a great many of them. Where I differ from them is as to the means by which the agricultural labourer can best be assisted—under the system of agriculture practised in England to-clay. I have no doubt that many hon. Members opposite wish to alter the present system of farming practised in this country. They would like to see the State supplanting the farmer and the landowner. With those hon. Gentlemen I have at least this
much in common. I realise like them that if you want to help farming the only way to do it is to put money into the industry at the top. Where we part company is that I maintain that the inefficiency and incompetence of the Whitehall farmers would be so great that the money going in at the top would have considerably less chance of filtering through to the pockets of the farm labourers than it has under the present system. To-day we have a system under which experienced farmers born and bred to the job run the show and under which the labourers are assured of a fair share of any benefits accruing to the industry through the working of the Wages Board which was set up to see after their interests.
Any one who is taking this Debate seriously and trying to be helpful knows that the only way to help this branch of farming, or any other branch, is to put money into the industry. This can be done in two ways, either from the taxpayers' pocket by means of a subsidy, or else, I will say, from the consumers' pocket; and I hope hon. Members opposite will credit me with courage for saying so. This can be done by either quotas, tariffs or import boards, as favoured by hon. Members opposite. If we genuinely desire to help livestock farming, it cannot be done without its costing somebody something. We cannot have the best of both worlds, and unless we are prepared to face up to this fact nothing of any great use is likely to be done. If the consuming public think, with me, that it is in the best interests of this country to maintain a virile population on the land, making a decent living out of the land, they must be prepared to make some small sacrifice towards this end. At least at the last election they showed their willingness to do so, and the sacrifices which they have made to date have been so well set off by the considerable improvement which has taken place in the agricultural position under the handling of my right hon. Friend, that I am sure he still has the country behind him. This being the case, I am only concerned at the moment to see that we put into operation the best long-term policy possible for the industry.
I heartily support my right hon. Friend's Measure for making a temporary
grant or subsidy to the industry. He cannot at this stage do otherwise. No one would wish to see a subsidy used as a permanent long-term policy. It is unreliable, and the most extravagant form of assistance. Once started, it is hard to give up. This leaves us with three alternative forms of assistance, either quota, levy or tariff. My right hon. Friend at the moment seems to be wooing a combination of the two, a quota-cum-levy policy. I view this flirtation with some slight apprehension. I may be old fashioned, and I am afraid I am already accounted by a near relative of mine by marriage among those politicians in this House whom I once heard her refer to as "those juvenile Rip Van Winkles." But I do not consider that in the long run it will be for the benefit of the livestock industry to be subjected to the control, rationalisation and complicated administration which a levy system must inevitably involve. Livestock farming is the branch of agriculture which is least suited for marketing control. Meat is nowhere near being such a marketable commodity as wheat or potatoes. It cannot be stored without losing the all important advantage that it has over foreign meat, and that is its freshness; and the preservation of this advantage is, to my mind, worth more to British agriculture than any marketing board or any levy.
The difficulties of administering a deficiency payment, or payment of any kind, on a live weight basis, as was seen in the War, are enormous. We all know, as has already been stated in this House this afternoon, ways of doctoring live animals so as to improve their appearance, increase their weight and hide any other defects. The possibility of evasion and fraud might lead to the payment being made on a dead weight basis. Once we are on a dead weight basis I maintain that we shall lose this valuable quality of freshness. A payment on a dead weight basis, as already anticipated, necessitates the setting up of abattoirs and central slaughter-houses throughout the country. Once a farmer is driven to a central slaughter-house he is automatically placed in the hands of the butchers. I do not want to say anything against butchers, except that I should consider them extremely poor business men indeed if they did not take full advantage of the all-powerful position in
which they would then find themselves. Once an animal is dead you cannot walk it round another market if you do not like the price offered. If the farmer will not accept the price the meat will go into cold storage, and the public will be given stored meat, which will be neither in the best interests of the public or the farmer.
I come to the other form of assistance, and that is a tariff. I realise that at the moment my right hon. Friend is not in a position to impose a tariff. He has, nevertheless, two years' grace before deciding upon a long-term policy, and I ask him in all seriousness not altogether to exclude from his mind this means of assistance. There is a very good case to be made out for a tariff. It is only fair that the livestock farming industry should have some measure of Protection in a protected world and in a country where every branch of industry to-day has some form of protection, and where there is a more or less protected wage market. It can be made effective in two years' time if the Cabinet and the Government intend it to be so. It has the advantage, to my mind, over quotas in that it is fair to importers into this country. I cannot help feeling that, in the long run, quotas are not likely to lead to better feelings throughout the Empire. Some friction must arise when the time comes for deciding the exact proportion of quota to be allotted among the countries forming the Empire. With a preferential tariff all parts of the Empire would be treated fairly, and could enter into healthy competition for our markets. Moreover, the public would have the certainty of a fresh meat supply, and we should be leaving the farmer the one last chance of having a little fun and a mild gamble in managing his own affairs at market.
The agricultural shows going on throughout the country show what a tremendous spirit and enterprise there is still left in the industry, in spite of the terrible time it has been through. If we give the livestock farming industry, when the time is opportune, a tariff sufficient to ensure a reasonable price, I am certain the industry will soon buck up. The Minister of Agriculture will then have done all that a great many farmers in this country ask him to do, and if the livestock farmer cannot carry on with a reasonable measure of Protection it
will be better for himself and the country if he "chucks it up" and devotes his attention to some other form of activity. I make these suggestions in the friendliest spirit and, as I said before, with a real desire to see that, when the time comes, the best long-term policy is decided upon. I also make them because I think it is only right that one who is deeply concerned with the ultimate welfare of the livestock industry should fearlessly voice any dangers he may see ahead. In conclusion, I would like to emphasise once more ray gratitude to my right hon. Friend for the immediate relief which he has given, and the resolute way in which he is tackling the problem. Unlike his great national hero, Robert Bruce, he has nothing to learn from the spider, and I sincerely trust that his determination will meet with the success which it deserves.

9.5 p.m.

Mr. GEORGE GRIFFITHS: I have seen to-day the best exhibition of worshipping at the shrine of the golden calf that I have ever seen in my life. The worshippers have come from all quarters, and they have been very frank about it. An hon. Member from one of the Scottish constituencies admitted this afternoon that so far as he was concerned it did not matter where the money came from or how it came, so long as he got it in his hands, and plenty of it, and he was quite sure that the Minister of Agriculture was the man who could find it for him. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Leominster (Sir E. Shepperson) is not here. I suppose he wanted a bit of something to eat. [An HON, MEMBER: "Beef!"] He will get some English beef, not like the foreign that I have had for some time. He stated that he was a simple, rural, intelligent person, who wanted to speak the truth. He wanted to say that they had had the subsidy for wheat. I looked up some figures while he was speaking, and I found that for 1932–33 the wheat subsidy was £4,510,000—not bad—and that the subsidy for milk will be £4,650,000; the subsidy for sugar since I have been in the House has been £3,500,000; and this afternoon's subsidy is to be £3,000,000 for beef. The hon. Member for Leominster said he was not bothered about the method, so long as he got the spoils.
I remember in March of this year, that the "Yorkshire Post," when it was putting up a fight against the Labour party in the West Riding County Council election said that the Labour policy which we had put forward was "rank bribery," and that we were trying to bribe the unemployed people and those who were receiving out-relief. I wish the people of the West Riding could have seen the exhibition in this House during the last month or so. If the Labour policy were "rank bribery" I call this "double-dyed bribery," so far as the Government are concerned, in regard to their supporters. The Government are making an attempt to bribe landowners and farmers, and everybody so far as the landed interest is concerned. The hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir T. Rosbotham) seems to be very much hurt. I think he must have a very tender conscience. I do not know him yet, but he seems to feel, with a good many of his colleagues, that the farmers should be put on a means test. Why should the farmers not be put on the means test in the same way as the 2,000,000 unemployed workers who are on it and who are put upon a very severe grid?
I am speaking of something that I know, and not of something that I have read in a book. I have served upon public assistance committees since November, 1931. If the farmers were subjected to the scrutiny which the unemployed get when going on to transitional payments, not many farmers would get the subsidy. [Laughter.] Somebody laughs. Why should not the income of the farmers be taken into 'account, including their interest from investments other than in their land, and the income coming into their homes, including the income of some of the sons who may be living there, some of the grandchildren, or the wooden-legged relatives, such as have been taken into account in regard to aplying the means test to unemployed people 4 I would ask them, "Why should there be a means test for your brothers end sisters, and no means test for you?" I am satisfied that if a means test were put into operation by the Minister of Agriculture for the farming community, exceptionally few farmers would fall into the category of needing assistance.
The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Lord Willoughby de Eresby),
speaking of the subsidy, said that the money ought to come in at the top. That is not the policy of the Minister of Agriculture. The money is not coming in at the top, but at the bottom. The reason it has not come-in at the bottom in the past is that the wages of the industrial workers have been reduced by many millions of pounds in a year. Last Monday night I tried to put across the Floor of the House the fact that there is not a collier in the British Islands who eats foreign meat because he likes it. He would sooner have the good British beef steak any day than two foreign beef steaks. He relishes English beef if he can get it, but, if the present proposal be adopted, he will not have the chance. I know what I am talking about. When I got home last week-end I had an instance showing how badly industry is smitten. I had pay notes put into my hand. I have one in my pocket of a man who has nine children under school age, and who came home last week from the pit with 5s. 5d. That is not a laughing matter. Hon. Members here may laugh about it, but that chap did not laugh, nor did his wife when she had that money put into her hands. She had hardly received it five minutes before the rent man was knocking at the door. She had to say to him, "I cannot give you any this week." These are the folk who would like to have some British beef. They cannot have it because wages are down. The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford says that we want to feed the money in from the top. It comes in, and when it arrives at Whitehall—

Lord WILLOUGHBY de ERESBY: The hon. Member must have misunderstood what I said. I was pointing out that the only way under the present system that the money could get to the bottom was from the top. The only man who pays wages in agriculture is the farmer, and until the farmer has made the money it is impossible for the wages to be paid.

Mr. GRIFFITHS: I understand that, but the person who has to eat the beef is the consumer and not the farmer. The farmer wants to sell it to someone who has the wages wherewith to buy it. The workers have not the wages at the present time. If the money comes in at the top, it has to filter through to the bottom. The producer pays every time, or, as we
say in the mining industry, "It all comes from the pit point." The consumer will be hit in this matter. The hon. Member from a Scottish constituency whom I mentioned, the hon. Member for Leominster and the hon. Member for Ormskirk all say that they want to sell the beef. We are trying to emphasise the fact that you cannot sell it if there is no money with which to buy it.
The other point of the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford is that people will have to have foreign meat if British meat goes into cold storage. Why is British meat going into cold storage? Because people cannot afford to buy it. The hon. Member for East Fulham (Mr. Wilmot) said that some people in his constituency would have to go without beef twice a week. Some of my folk go without it six times a week, and they do not get much of it on Sunday. They go without, and they work hard. I am more than ever convinced that I am right, coming from an industrial constituency, in opposing this Bill, by the fact of the support that it is getting from all angles, and we shall go into the Lobby against it. Someone said something about votes. I make no bones about repeating the statement that, if a by-election occurred in an industrial urban centre and it was fought on nothing but this Beef Bill, we should win it hands down; and, if no by-election is fought upon it, when a general election comes, if this Bill is on the Statute Book, instead of hindering us it will give us 100 seats at the next election.

9.16 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir MERVYN. MANNINGHAM-BULLER: I should like to say a few words about this Bill from the point of view of one who represents an industrial centre rather than from the point of view of agriculture. The last speaker and one or two others seem to take the view that those who represent industrial centres should be opposed to this Measure, but I cannot help thinking that they are profoundly mistaken. It seems to me that the one vital thing for British industry at the moment is a free market where the goods it produces can be sold. It becomes increasingly difficult week by week and month by month to sell our goods overseas. Only too often, when by skill and energy and enterprise our manufacturers have built up a line of goods for export to a certain country,
they find that, as soon as they, have got it established, it is knocked out by some change in currency, some decrease in quotas, or some increase in duties. In the home market there are no troubles of that sort; there are no quotas or alterations of currency; and it has become increasingly clear during the last year to everyone engaged in industry that the home market is now of more vital importance to our industries than ever it has been before. If that be the case, surely it is in the interest of all those engaged in industry to do everything they can to strengthen the home market and build up its purchasing power. The industrial centres of this country now find themselves surrounded by a large agricultural community who are facing bankruptcy. Many farmers are entirely in the hands of the banks; they are unable to spend money or purchase goods; if nothing is done to help their industry, they will find themselves faced with bankruptcy. That means that a large proportion of our home market is useless as regards the sale of their goods by industrial concerns. If some measure of prosperity could be restored to this branch of agriculture, which has been hit so hardly, it would strengthen and build up a portion of our most valuable market, namely, the home market.
If money is provided for that purpose, where will it be spent? It will be spent in the local towns, in our own industries —in the purchase of boots from my own constituency, of woollens from Yorkshire, of cottons from Lancashire, goods which cannot now be bought by that portion of the community, because they are practically speaking down and out. Surely it is sound on the part of the big industrial centres to support a policy of that sort. I was interested to hear, in an excellent maiden speech earlier in the Debate, the statement that many of the sons of agricultural labourers on the grazing farms are looking for other jobs and going out of the industry in which they have been brought up, and for which they are well fitted. The position is even worse than that. This year, perhaps for the first time in the history of this island, the sons of farmers and graziers themselves, whose fathers and grandfathers have been bred and born in the grazing industry, have been giving up the one job for which they were pre-eminently fitted, and looking for other openings, probably flooding an already overstocked
market in other directions. Where are you going to find people to take their place? The art of grazing beef or managing grassland is not learned in a short time. These men have been born and bred to the job, and it is a job that they like. I welcome this Bill because it will bring back some measure of prosperity to the industry and put it on its feet, but I welcome it even more because I think it will restore to the graziers a feeling of confidence that the Government mean to see that they get fair play, and I hope that it will have the effect of checking this tendency of the sons of graziers to look for other jobs. I am sure that that will be in the interest of the country.
I would ask those who represent industrial areas to take a broad and long view of the position, bearing in mind the fact that the problem which is always worrying the leaders of our industries is where to find markets for their goods. It is in the interest of all those engaged in industry to do everything they can to increase and strengthen the market where their goods can be sold, rather than allow a great portion of their most valuable market to be so wiped out that it will not be possible to re-establish its purchasing capacity for many years to come. When we are finding it increasingly difficult to sell our goods overseas, we should do everything we possibly can to strengthen and enlarge the one really valuable market in which we have the advantage over everyone else, namely, our own home market. I hope that representatives of industrial constituencies will support the Bill, and I think that those who oppose it are doing a disservice to the industries in those areas which they represent.

9.23 p.m.

Mr. EVERARD: I was glad to hear the speech of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Northampton (Sir M. Manningham-Buller), because it was rather depressing to me to hear Members representing the towns trying to counteract all the good that has been done in the last few years in bringing the country and the town closer together. I agree with every word that my hon. and gallant Friend has said. This is a matter which not only affects people who live in the country, but affects equally, and pos
sibly even more, those who derive their livelihood from the towns. It is to the greatest industry of all, the industry employing the largest number of people in this country, that they must look to a large extent for a market for their manufactured goods. I think that the view expressed by hon. Members opposite is au extremely short-sighted view, and I cannot believe that it really represents the view of the ordinary people who reside in the cities. I am also rather surprised to see the official Opposition Amendment, because, if hon. Members opposite had any knowledge at all of the parlous position of the grazing industry all over the country at the present time, they would know that there is no possible question of a cure being found for it in reorganisation, but that it is almost a matter of days whether the industry can continue through the next year or not.
I was going to say to my right hon. Friend, to whom we are so much indebted for what he has done to bring this Bill forward, that I agree entirely with what my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke (Mrs. Copeland) said on Monday, that if this Measure is not pressed forward, or, at any rate, if measures are not taken immediately to prevent imports from New Zealand and other Dominions to some extent, I fear very much that the good that we expect even from this Measure may come to nought. As is well known, this will be a very early season for marketing cattle. It may be that before this Bill can come into operation the market will be so glutted with cattle that the present arrangement of £3 per head will be of no use at all to the farmers in my neighbourhood. I can speak for my own district in the Midlands that the average losses sustained by the farmers in the production of cattle are well over £3 a head, and that it would not, be overstating the case to say that the loss is something over £5 or £6 a head. I hope, therefore, that hon. Members opposite will not run away with the idea that this Bill is largely going to make cattle-breeding a prosperous industry. It may allow it just temporarily to struggle through until my right hon. Friend the Minister is able to bring forward his other proposals to put it on a permanent basis.
In conclusion, I think that the Minister has a right, and I expect he will exercise
it, to ask the agricultural community themselves to do what they can to assist in the improvement of the selling and slaughtering of cattle. I believe that very much can be done, not by doing away with the small markets, because they are a great asset to this country, but by a better method of marketing, and certainly by a better method of slaughtering. I believe that they themselves could, by a method of their own, quite probably do away with and keep off the market a great deal of the inferior quality of beef which has done so much in the past to run the price down to ruinous levels, and of which we see so much at the present time. It is eight years ago that the Linlithgow Committee reported on this question of marketing, and it is high time that some of the suggestions they put forward should again be considered.
There is a great deal in the views put forward on both sides of the House to-day, particularly by the hon. Member for East Fulham (Mr. Wilmot), on the difference between the cost of production and the selling price not only of beef but also of a great many other agricultural products. I do not think that anybody necessarily profiteers in this market, but I believe that there is some better method of transport and of conducting other operations that would not only reduce the cost to the producer, but would enable him to get a better price for his goods than that which he is obtaining at the present time. We thank the Minister very sincerely, not only for bringing in this Bill but also for the untiring work, energy and sympathy which he has given to the whole agricultural community since he took office in this country. I may say also, without any wish to flatter him, that there has never been anybody in whom the people, at least in my district in England, have had greater confidence than the present Minister.

9.29 p.m.

Sir FRANCIS ACLAND: Those of us who have kept in touch with agricultural conditions have seen during the last two years, with intense sympathy and apprehension, the market for livestock getting steadily worse and worse. We have heard over and over again that the Government, by negotiation and otherwise, were going to see that the tide turned. We have listened at auctions in
our own constituencies and over the wireless to the steady fall in prices, month by month, all the time. We remember when the price per live cwt. used to be 60s., and how that price gave place to 50s., and 50s. to 40s. Now, with regard to a considerable variety of beef in a considerable number of markets, the prevailing prices are down in the neighbourhood of 30s. per live cwt. In spite of the prophecies, I believe that it is an undoubted fact that ever since the Ottawa Agreements, which were represented to our farmers as giving them the first claim in the markets, the Dominions the second and foreign countries the third, things have got steadily worse.
Quite clearly, any Minister finding the position as it is would feel that something must be done. I am sure that my hon. Friends above the Gangway would not deny that if they were in power. No one would seriously contemplate the disappearance of so essential a part of our agriculture as is represented by stock grazing and fattening. Nevertheless, it may disappear unless something is done this winter. To anybody who knows anything about the industry, as my hon. Friends above the Gangway no doubt do, obviously it cannot live any longer on its savings through another bad six months. There are no savings left except in very special conditions in rather special corners of the country there are none in the main stock districts. Farmers, generally speaking, in the districts which I have in mind are not solvent. They are being carried by their bankers, by people who are afraid to call in mortgages, by merchants and by many others. We in this part of the House- have never denied that it might be quite justifiable to take steps of the nature of one or other of the alternative courses that are now before us in circumstances similar to those in which the industry finds itself, namely, the verge of a big measure of reorganisation in certain circumstances.
I will quote, if I may, what my right hon. Friend the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) said about that subject, so as to make clear a proposition which in this Debate has sometimes had doubt cast upon it. The point is that we are strongly in favour of measures to reorganise our agricultural industry, provided that they
comply with certain conditions. We are not opposed to giving help during the time needed for reorganisation if those conditions are complied with. In parenthesis I may say that the measures which we favour and have carefully worked out go a great deal further than marketing reorganisation. Our policy would include taking steps to see that the benefits of improved marketing went to those who had the difficult task of readjusting their methods to the improved marketing, and did not, sooner or later, filter through to landowners in the form of rent as it is bound to do in present circumstances. If I may recall the words of my right hon. Friend on the Second Reading of the Agricultural Marketing Bill, in 1933, he said:
If an industry were engaged in a complete reorganisation of its methods, reestablishing itself in accordance with present day requirements, modernising its plant and changing its methods, and if it could be shown that during the period that the scheme was being put into operation it needed some shelter from destruction by a flood of foreign importations designed to overthrow it meanwhile, we should recognise the justice of such a claim and would be prepared to admit it.
Any such scheme, however, should observe four conditions.
—which the right hon. Member gave. They were these:
First, it should not be the purpose of the scheme permanently to raise the prices of the commodities above the prices prevailing in the world at large,
and the object of reorganisation was to make the industries concerned effective, so that they could produce in competition with the rest of the world.
—secondly, that they should not be given any permanent measure of protection which could only conduce to revive inefficiency, but that such a measure as this should be exceptional, temporary and provisional, and should come to an end after a specified period of years; thirdly, that the interests of the consumers should be most carefully safeguarded, and that they should have an important place in the machinery for establishing such a system; fourthly, that there should be specific Parliamentary sanction in each case."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th March, 1933; cols. 73–4, Vol. 276]
That lays down the general line, to which we still adhere. I now come to the special circumstances of this case. I have tried to show how grievous is the position on the actual farms, but there are other things that come into consideration. I agree that the main consideration in all
these big questions, if you take the long view, is that the customers of agriculture should return to prosperity, and that in the long run none of these artificial methods will have any effect unless that comes about. But, when I am thinking not of the unemployed or impoverished people who cannot afford the meat which undoubtedly they would otherwise be consuming, it is a fact that the habits of feeding are changing among people who can afford, within limits, what they want. Men and women nowadays eat less than they used, and eat a greater variety, and they find it suits them better. They are inclined to eat more fruit and vegetables, and wives are inclined to dislike cooking. When they come into the new council houses, they have only a gas oven which holds a, small joint, which is a factor in the situation, and, rightly or wrongly, families are smaller and the large joint is a very uneconomical proposition for a small family. All that has to be taken into account. Consequently one finds, from the remarkable figures that the Minister gave, that our share of our home market has been steadily going down. We find alongside that, most remarkable figures, which I have not previously had in mind, of the extraordinary increase of importation from some of the Dominions. The hon. Member for Thirsk (Mr. Turton) gave figures which showed an increase of 77 per cent. between one year and the next. The figures for New Zealand were most amazing-377,000 cwts. of beef in the pre-Ottawa year and 700,000 in the following year and an anticipation of 1,000,000 cwts. in the present year.
It seems to me that the position at which we have arrived is the fault of the Ottawa policy. I do not want to describe that policy in the extraordinarily strong language of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery); at the same time, perhaps my feelings are much the same as his. At Ottawa undoubtedly the Dominions were allowed to think that we could absorb a steadily increasing amount bf their produce. With regard to beef that was not true, and it was not true with regard to other things. We might have been able to absorb the extra amount which they were encouraged to supply if the Government had made a better job of the World Economic Conference. It was, no doubt, their idea that, following on a successful Ottawa Conference, they would
have a successful World Economic Conference and they laid enormous stress on the success of it. With that in their mind they, no doubt, gave the Dominions this idea that we should be able to take a steadily expanding amount from them, but from the moment the Government said at the World Economic Conference that they objected to quotas put on by foreign countries against us but that our quotas were different, and that they objected to duties which were unreasonable but, of course, our duties were most reasonable, the World Economic Conference was doomed to failure. From that moment also, of course, as has become increasingly evident in recent months, the Ottawa policy has been a millstone round the Government's neck and the ruin that is now threatening our farmers is directly the Government's fault for having encouraged the Dominions to go in for extra production without securing a restoration of prosperity at home, which alone would make possible our absorption of that extra production.
There has been a new factor that has come in which is rather important in the case of New Zealand and some of the other Dominions. They have, I believe of set policy, depreciated their currency below ours. That, of course, has helped this enormous growth of exports at low prices with which our farmers, on a higher currency level, cannot compete. I do not know how it is that New Zealand, knowing the number of their stocks, no doubt, from the census, and having made the proviso that they might send an extra 10 per cent. in each of the two years, have increased beyond all proportion— 120 per cent. in the first year and 140 per cent. in the second. Unless their cows have suddenly learned the way of dropping three-year old calves one cannot imagine how the miscalculation occurred, but this depreciation of currency has helped them to export at prices which are really ruin to us without being so hard on them. Also, of course, some of our Dominions, though not in regard to meat, are using subsidies to undercut our producers. We find, for instance, Australian butter being sold here at 9d. a lb. and the same butter being sold in Australia at ls. 6d. We have always asserted that it was justifiable to take steps to prevent an essential home industry being ruined by deliberate subsidy or currency depreciation.
What is proposed in the Bill? It may be regarded in two ways. You may regard it legitimately either simply as a subsidy to be borne, like the sugar beet and shipping subsidies, by the taxpayer and never to be recovered, or One may follow the line that the right hon. Gentleman took a day or two ago when he explained that this is a temporary advance necessary because he cannot yet put a tax on beef, but that it is to be repaid to the Treasury as soon as we can arrange such a tax, either with the consent of the Dominions or compulsorily, after the expiry of the period during which we are debarred from putting taxes on meat from the Dominions and from the Argentine. I prefer to take the long view, though it is quite legitimate to take the shorter view, on the principle that the person who wills the means must be regarded as willing the end. I can foresee how, when the tax is proposed, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will explain that we are partly committed to the policy of the tax by having passed this Bill and granted this subsidy to be repaid out of the tax. Following the admirable example of the President of the Board of Trade, I am pledged not to vote for taxes on meat, as are a considerable number of Members on that side of the House who sit for borough and city constituencies, as they will be well advised to remind themselves before they give definitive votes on this matter. I see no escape from the conclusion that the consequences of what we are asked to do to-day are meant by the Government to be a tax of a penny a pound on meat with a drawback, no doubt, for the Dominions.
Unfortunately, I missed the speech of the Minister this afternoon, but I asked one of my hon. Friends, who took notes for me, whether he told the House that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had consented even provisionally to regard this as a non-repayable subsidy. That has not been said, and I doubt whether it will be. The position might possibly be different for some of us if the Minister had told us that the tax would only stay on until it had yielded the amount of the subsidy, and that it would then be repealed. I fancy that he did not say that either. I feel certain that, once the Government get a tax put on, they will
not be in the least inclined to take it off again. I feel equally certain that once any other Government come in they will take it off, and it is because of that uncertainty and inevitable unsettling of the industry, that I am so much opposed to these definite taxes upon essential articles of food. It seems, therefore, that what is inherent in this Bill is incompatible with what my right hon. Friend the Member for Darwen laid down as the conditions upon which we would agree to help an industry in the process of transition by the reorganisation of its markets. To return to what he said, I believe that it is the intention of the Government, to quote his words, to raise prices permanently above the level of world prices and to give protection permanently, and not in a way which shall be—again to quote his words—exceptional, temporary and provisional, ending after a specified period. That, therefore, goes against the principles which I must, and do, loyally support.
The Minister, who is always inclined to ask us what our policy is when he is a bit in doubt about his own, may ask me what my alternative would be to meet the present emergency, which I admit ought to be met. I do not like subsidies because they encourage an industry, once it gets them, to go on leaning upon the State and expecting, whenever times are hard, to be helped out again in the same way as it was helped before. I do not want quantitative restrictions because, though the prices go up, the whole gain in prices goes to the exporting country and not to us. And I do not like duties. I think it was Dr. Johnson who, when asked his opinion about the respective demerits of three unpleasant persons, said, "I will not argue to the point of persistency between a louse, a flea and a bug." I feel the same about subsidies, duties and quotas, but, in the circumstances of this case, I think that if I were in the Minister's position, which I am glad I am not, I should try to visualise the matter in this way. He could do it very much better than I could, because he has all the essential figures.
Take the price of a certain quality of beef at 40s. per live cwt. Take the certainty of the farmers holding back stack through the summer, hoping that something will be done before long, and take
the certainty of the shortage of keep for the autumn, and therefore the certainty that they will make every possible effort to dispose of a perfect flood of stock in the early autumn. You will find prices going down, if nothing is done, to 30s. or less. It means, of course, that a lot of cattle will have to be killed without being marketed for food at all. Take the supposition that the Minister intends to take measures to secure prices. I do not know what his price is, and it would have been better if he had told us what he wanted to secure. Suppose it is 45s. on an average during the next seven months of the subsidy period. There is no profit in that, but people can go on without increasing their losses. On this estimate, this may happen. The greater part of the rise in price which he hopes to secure, must be secured by quota restrictions and not by a subsidy. That is a perfectly good point, and one which hon. Members in other parts of the House who are in fairly close touch with the industry have made. The subsidy will be the minor point.
That being so, is it unfair to our Dominions which have produced such an enormous and wholly unanticipated supply of stock to ask them to make up for the very great gain which they have had in the last two years by a restriction now, which would, at any rate, neutralise the depreciated currency which they have gone in for in order to help the flood of exports to this country? It might mean for them a loss in supplies, but, as we have seen in the case Danish bacon, they would get higher prices, and it seems that they ought to be able for a few months to use the extra money, as the Danes have done with regard to bacon, to compensate for the decreased supply. If after that the Government bring before the House proposals for a duty upon meant, we shall know where we are and be able to do our best to meet it. I object to this duty being brought in, and to the fact that we are being more or less committed to it by a side wind. therefore, I should have avoided that at this time without committing myself, if I had been Minister, as to what I might think it necessary to do in future.

Mr. ELLIOT: Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that he is in favour at present of a severer quota restriction, and that if that were put be-
fore the Dominions and they did not agree to it he would be willing to meet me on the point of putting on a duty.

Sir F. ACLAND: No, I am afraid I cannot have made myself clear. Surely, the Minister is free now, whether the Dominions agree or not, to put on quota restrictions, or at any rate, he is free to put on a duty. Therefore, I am afraid, whether they agreed or not, knowing that I had to put a very severe quota upon the Dominions anyway, I should do the whole thing by quota and not partly by quota and partly by subsidy. There is this further point about the subsidy. Farmers are intensely nervous about pending proposals for meat re-organisation. They know that it means the abolition of the small markets in which all their business is done and it may mean, if we are to get the Dominions to agree to any system of quotas, that we may have to have a quota here, too. After the engagements of the Ottawa period, it will be a great strain upon the Empire for us to make them mark time permanently while we again expand. A quota means a definite fixed quantity of stock being required from each farmer, which is really an impossible thing in agriculture. You cannot treat the farmer like a factory. Farmers are very much afraid. In these circumstances a subsidy may defeat its own object. Farmers will be inclined to concentrate upon every head of stock during the early portion of the subsidy period in order to be sure that the £3,000,000 will not be exhausted until they have obtained their share of it, and, if prices accordingly go down, the effect of the subsidy may be neutralised. For these reasons, we cannot support the means of meeting the situation which the Minister is proposing in this Bill.

9.54 p.m.

Mr. GEORGE HALL: I am sure that agricultural Members in this House will agree that they have had more than a fair share of the time of the House during the last fortnight in dealing with agricultural problems. On Monday of last week we had a full day on the Minister's Vote, and on Monday of this week we had a day on the Financial Resolution dealing with these proposals, to-day we are discussing the Bill, and I understand that on Monday and Tuesday of next week agriculture is again to be discussed in this House. Out of two or three
Parliamentary weeks, five days are being set aside for agricultural questions. I am afraid that, unlike my right hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland), I cannot speak as an agriculturist. In common with most of my hon. Friends who have spoken from these benches, I am one of the 93 per cent. of people who are consumers of the agricultural products produced and imported into this country, and I think it is necessary that the point of view of the consumer should be put with force to the agriculturist. Representatives of industrial districts should be as persistent in advocating the claims of those industries and constituencies as the agriculturists are in pressing the claims of agriculture, and as they have been, I can almost say, for the 12 years that I have had the honour to sit in this House.
It has been very interesting to hear some of the speeches delivered, not only this afternoon but also on Monday. Right hon. Members whom I have heard strongly opposing a subsidy have openly advocated a subsidy for the purpose of assisting the agricultural industry. I feel that, if such a strong claim can be made for the subsidy for agriculture, there are many other industries which would benefit to a very much greater extent by a subsidy of the same kind. The Minister of Agriculture this afternoon did not attempt to explain his proposals any further. He explained the Bill at great length and pointed out the difficulty and the length of time which reorganisation of this industry would require. He pointed out the various sections into which it has been or is being divided and which make it difficult to have a complete scheme of reorganisation.
It cannot be said that agriculture during the past, shall I say, generation, has not been discussed in this House. Proposals for dealing with various branches of it have been submitted and relief of one kind or another has been given for the purpose of assisting it. It cannot be said that the proposals in this Bill are the first proposals for dealing with the question of meat. The Ottawa Agreements have been discussed, imports of meat from foreign countries have been regulated, and we know that a White Paper was issued last December in which the Minister himself undertook to regulate the import of meat from foreign
countries and also restrict the import of cattle from Ireland. That has been going on for some time, and it has been pointed out that this subsidy which is to be given to the meat industry is not the end. Indeed, it is only the beginning, and in the proposals of the Minister the only finality which I can see is the question of the levy. There are no proposals at all to deal with the reorganisation of this branch of the industry.
The Minister himself said in the White Paper which was issued before the discussion on Monday that the Government are of the opinion that a plan based on a levy on all imported meat, including livestock, and a regulated market as in the previous paragraph in this White Paper would be the best long-term solution of the problem and one which would hold best the balance between producer and consumer. It was not contemplated that the levy would exceed one penny per pound with a preference for the Dominions. That is the only long-term proposal which the Minister has had for dealing with this difficulty. I suppose he also contemplates in the negotiations which he intends to have with the Dominions and the Argentine that there shall be some further restrictions. The Minister and the Government appear to be fascinated by tariffs, quotas, embargoes and all other methods of instructing the flow of trade. It can be said of a subsidy, if it has any merit at all, that its only merit is that it is a crude admission that the vested interest that gets it is put on the dole and is subsidised by the man in the street who will know, through Parliament, how much is being paid.
It is doubtful if the hardships suffered by British agriculture are as great as those suffered by other industries, especially the heavy industries, and it is certain that the present troubles of the farmer are due more to the collapse of the purchasing power of the mass of the people than to the prices in the market. With millions of people below the subsistence level there can be no argument that we suffer from over production of agricultural products. It cannot be said that nothing has been done for the farmer and the landowner, and the country will soon have to decide whether
all this assistance that has been given has brought more and cheaper food within the reach of the mass of the people of this country. So much has been said in the Debate to-day and in previous Debates about the assistance which has been given from time to time to agriculture that I think the agricultural Members in this House should be reminded that the 93 per cent. of the population of this country who are consumers pay all the rates on agricultural land in this country. The farmers have their land rate free. We have a tax on our bread to encourage the production of wheat, we pay more for our milk, we pay more for our bacon, fruit and vegetables, we contribute to a subsidy on sugar, and now we are asked to agree to this subsidy of £3,000,000, which, if the Minister gets his way, we shall have to repay by a penny levy on meat imported into this country.

Sir JOSEPH LAMB: Is not the index figure for agricultural products lower than that of any other industry?

Mr. HALL: I do not know that that has much to do with it, but my hon. Friend must know that as far as beef is concerned the figures for June of this year show that since 1914 the price to the retailer is up by 50 per cent.

Sir J. LAMB: Also for everything else, for manufactured articles.

Mr. HALL: We are dealing with meat this evening. I have seen an estimate that the assistance given to agriculture since the War has been sufficient to have purchased about one-quarter of the agricultural land in England and Wales. Another estimate is that in the last five years agriculture has received in relief of taxation and in subsidies in one form and another an amount equal to the wages paid to all the workmen employed in the industry. I wonder what would have happened if other industries had had an equal amount, say the cotton industry, or the industry in which I am interested, that of coal. Whatever can be said about the changed habits of the people and the reduction in the consumption of beef as a result, can be said with regard to coal, for there are new factors of power production which have reduced the consumption of coal. If a claim can be made, as is being made by agriculturists, that for the reasons given by the
Minister they are entitled to a subsidy, I say without hesitation that a similar claim can be made on behalf of every other industry which is suffering as a result of the changing habits of the people.
We have heard a good deal to-day, as we have on previous occasions, about the difficulties with which agriculture is confronted and about farmers being on the verge of bankruptcy. I have heard that argument put in every agricultural Debate that has taken place in the House during the last 12 years. I was interested to see the results of the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation in the last three years. This Corporation is responsible for financing the industry under the Agricultural Credits Act. The annual meetings of the Corporation indicate that something like £14,000,000 has been lent during the time that the Corporation has been in existence on some 600,000 acres of land, and that mortgages have been given on land in almost every county in the country. The statements made by the Chairman at the annual meetings of the Corporation do not in any way indicate that agriculture is in the condition which hon. Members who represent agricultural interests seem to indicate. In one of the last three years the Chairman stated that lie was pleased to report that 98 per cent. of the repayments and the interest falling due was received within a week of the date fixed for the payment, and that, in addition, £123,000 which was not due was repaid. Last year something like 92 per cent. of the interest and repayments due were made punctually, and in addition some £400,000 was repaid when it need not have been repaid and could have been carried over for the period for which the loan was granted. Such figures and statements from a representative person who is Chairman of this Corporation do not indicate that the agricultural industry is in the condition which hon. Members who represent agricultural districts have indicated in this Debate.
The £3,000,000 which is provided for in this Bill is just a temporary measure. The Minister hopes that it will be repaid. May I ask from whom it will be collected? A levy is to be charged upon meat imported into this country. As was pointed out by one of my hon. Friends, the poorest people have to eat frozen and chilled meat, and the levy will be charged
upon the meat which is eaten by those people. As the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland) said, once this assistance is given to agriculture there will be some difficulty in removing it. This £3,000,000 is for seven months only. In a full year it must amount to something like £5,000,000. In addition to what will be required to meet the annual charge for the payment of this assistance to the producers of cattle, this £3,000,000 must also be charged. I say without hesitation that the working people who eat frozen and chilled meat cannot afford to pay this extra levy.
I wonder what the President of the Board of Trade has to say about this matter. He was closely questioned in February, 1933, as to the pledge which he gave in the last election which, to put it broadly, indicated that under no consideration would he vote for a tax upon food. He qualified that afterwards and said he did not mean food in the broad sense, but what and meat. The proposal Vontained in this Bill, following out what I think is the intention of the Minister of Agriculture, is that a levy shall be placed upon meat. I can understand why the President of the Board of Trade does not grace us with his presence during the discussions upon this matter. As one of my hon. Friends pointed out, there are two Walters. One Walter is concerned about shipping and these restrictions of trade which have compelled the Government to give a subsidy to shipping; and there is the other Walter who is doing his utmost to restrict trade and so make the position of shipping much more difficult.
I am much concerned about these proposals and their effect upon the coal industry, and especially the coal industry in that part of the country from which I come. It is evident that the right hon. Gentleman, notwithstanding the agreement with the Argentine, is going to adopt some further restrictive measures so far as that country is concerned. The Argentine is one of the best customers of coal we have in South Wales, and South Wales is the most distressed area in the country. The Argentine market is a most valuable market to us, and, if it is further interfered with, more miners will be unemployed, and less of the best agricultural produce which is produced in this country will be consumed, so that
miners, instead of depending upon the best British beef, will have to depend upon imported beef. We might rightly ask who is responsible for the increased imports of frozen and chilled foreign meat. Take the question of cattle. The right hon. Gentleman has restricted the imports of store cattle from the Irish Free State by something like 110,000 for the first six months of this year compared with the first six months of 1933. There is this reduction of one-third. At the same time there is an increase of one-third in the importation of cattle from Canada. A reduction in one case and an increase in the other. There is a substantial increase in the amount of chilled meat from the Argentine and a substantial increase in the amount of frozen meat from the Dominions. From New Zealand the increase has been from 270,000 cwts. in the first six months of 1932 to 447,000 cwts. in the first six months of this year. The same can be said of almost all our Dominions in respect of frozen or chilled meat sent to this country.
What about the question of price? In the White Paper which was published before the discussion last Monday it was stated that British beef was sold at less than pre-war price. So far as the consumer is concerned he does not get that advantage. In 1932 the first quality British beef was sold at 10d. a lb., and at the present time the best British beef is sold at ls. 2d. a lb. I called at a butcher's shop this morning and asked whether he could tell me the price of prime steak, and he said that the best steak was 2s. a lb. He added that they had steak which was very much cheaper but the best steak was 2s. There is a margin between the wholesale price and the retail price, and in the Amendment which was moved by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps) we say that that margin could be filled to the advantage of the producer if there was a scheme of reorganisation for the production and marketing of meat. Do not let it be a charge upon the consumer every time.
During the course of the Debate suggestions have been made to the right hon. Gentleman that he should treat meat as bacon has been treated and that there should be quota restrictions. It is very interesting to note what has been done
with bacon. During the first six months of this year the imports of bacon into this country have been reduced as compared with 1932 by nearly 2,000,000 cwts. and the value of those reduced imports of bacon has increased by £500,000. In other words, for nearly 2,000,000 cwt. of bacon less the people of this country are paying 500,000 more than they paid for 2,000,000 cwt. more of bacon imported in the first six months of 1932. Who is finding the money? It is being found by the consumer. The price of bacon has increased. In January, 1933, the wholesale price of Irish bacon brought into this country was 67s. 6d., and in June of this year the price had increased to over 100s. per cwt. Danish bacon was sold in January, 1932, at 62s. 6d. a cwt. and it is now 97s. 6d. a cwt. Hon. Members who represent industrial areas know how important bacon was as part of the food of working people some two or three years ago. I remember bacon being sold at 3½d. to 4d. per lb., I mean the thin slices, but I doubt very much whether the same quality can now be bought at anything less than 7d. or 8d. or 9d. per lb., and if you want the best bacon it costs about ls. 8d. or ls. 10d. per lb. This inflicts considerable hardship on the working classes, and whatever proposals the right hon. Gentleman may introduce, whether they are restrictions or a levy, they will means that the financial difficulties will be felt entirely by the working classes.
It is surprising that the sale of fresh beef, as of fresh milk, should need to be assisted in this way. One would have thought that the freshness of the home products would have given them a monopoly. But there are other reasons for the falling off in the consumption of beef. Those engaged in the heavy industries were the biggest meat eaters, persons employed in the mining industry have always been large meat eaters, and the falling off in the consumption of meat is largely the result, in the first place, of fewer men being employed in these heavy industries and, in the second place, of the low wages which are paid to those employed. Any rise in price, therefore, will have the inevitable effect of reducing the demand, and thus will not solve the difficulty. The Minister of Agriculture, speaking on the Estimates of the Department last year, in dealing with the question of interfering with the imports of food, said:
We have to go cautiously in these matters. We are handling the food of the people. The country is in no condition to stand spectacular or unjustified rises, and no one wishes to see such rises take place. … If we prejudice the consumer lie will not merely be prejudiced against the importer but against the home producer also. The housewife will put it, down to the avarice of the home producer if she has been forced to pay an unreasonable proportion of her man's weekly wage to fill her shopping basket."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th July,, 1933; col. 953, Vol. 280.]
That is the position, and we say that the demand for cheap food is overwhelming and cannot be disregarded as long as we have the economic conditions which prevail at the moment. Home killed is not sold in working class areas. I wish it was, it is better than foreign. Home killed is a luxury in working class homes. Its price retail militates against bigger sales. If you go to any of the industrial centres you will see numbers of poor people waiting until late on Saturday evenings when there is generally an auction sale of meat, mostly imported, to see if they can get it cheaper than if they had purchased it earlier in the day. If the price of imported meat is increased then numbers of these people will have to go without their Sunday dinner, which is the principal meal of the week in the majority of working class homes.
This proposal is class legislation in the worst form. A levy will be imposed on the food of the poor to pay for the best meat produced below the cost of production, and wealthy people who can afford to pay will have the best beef in the world at their tables. This will be done at the expense of millions of the poorest of the poor. This legislation, in our opinion, is almost entirely for that purpose. Producers, with the Government's support, are to fix prices for this commodity, presumably at figures high enough to cover relative inefficiency in this industry, and they are to be able to enforce these prices by depriving the public of alternative supplies from abroad. A better way, as was stated by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps), is to organise the production and marketing side of this industry, and to put it on a basis such as to give an adequate reward to those who cultivate the soil and care for the livestock in this assential and important industry, which we all desire to see prosperous.
We believe that these proposals are only tinkering with the problem. There is just one consolation, and that is that when the consuming public is once aroused it will with no uncertain voice make short work of these doles, and insist that agriculture shall play its part in the economic life of the nation. It can surely be said that the consuming public is being very patient and very generous to the farmers and the landowners, arid it is to be hoped that they and the Government will not continue to misunderstand this patience or to take advantage of it, as is proposed in this Bill. I readily associated myself with the Amendment which has been moved.

10.27 p.m.

Mr. ELLIOT: I am sure that the Debate has not falsified the hopes which we all had at the beginning of this series of discussions, when I introduced the Financial Resolution and said that the House was entering upon a very great subject, and that I hoped we should find ourselves equal to it. The character of the Debate and the points which have been raised are worthy of the deep consideration which the British House of Commons must give to this subject, opened in this way. The Oppositions are of course in a slight dilemma. The Liberal party have had considerable difficulty in finding rural Members who can reasonably attack the proposals, or urban Members who fully understand their bearing. Right hon. and hon. Members of the Labour party are in a still more difficult dilemma. They have to find out of their scanty numbers Members who do not represent mining constituencies to attack any proposals for supply regulation. They are not quite capable of doing it; there are not quite enough Members.
We have had the hon. Member for the Hemsworth Division (Mr. G. Griffiths) and the hon. Member for Aberdare (Mr. G. Hall) putting up a very strong case against the Bill, arguing with great vehemence and putting a point in which they thoroughly believe, but all the time they are conscious of their share of responsibility for the coal quotas and measures for the supply and restriction of coal, and for a Bill which put a heavy burden on the homes of the poor, a Bill which meant higher prices for coal in the working-class home, with no allowance
for the fact that the working-classes use very large quantities of coal, and they have succeeded in stabilising the price of coal at the 1931 figure. If we were asking on this occasion for any such thing hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite would denounce us with unbridled denunciation.

Mr. DAVID GRENFELL: Is it not the case that the prices which will be paid for beef, including this subsidy, will range considerably higher than those of 1931?

Mr. ELLIOT: In 1931 the index figure for fat cattle was 122; in 1932 it was 115; in 1933, 101 and at the end of June, 1934, it was 94 land if I can get it up to 122—

Mr. G RENFELL: But does not the subsidy in fact raise it very much higher? I hope the right hon. Gentleman will translate the figure of the subsidy into percentages.

Mr. ELLIOT: All I can say is that I shall watch the course of prices with great care in the next two or three months, and, if I can get a. rise to 122, I shall consider that we have not done so badly. I am sure if we could offer the beef producer in this country for his autumn cattle a rise of nearly 40 per cent., then the ordinary beef producers would join. in saying, "Great as the praises are which have been heaped upon the head of the Minister, they are nothing to what he ought to get." Let me put it to my hon. and right hon. Friends opposite. Why should it be so wrong for the meat producer to seek to secure the same level of prices which the coal producers secured by the same method—the method of supply restriction?

Sir S. CRIPPS: This is subsidy.

Mr. ELLIOT: We have discussed that before, and I think the hon. and learned Gentleman will admit, as we all admit, that if the full measure of quantitative restriction were applied, if we limited the production as rigidly as is being done in many cases in the coal area, if we threw the butchers out of action for two or three days a month or even longer, if we fined or imprisoned people for overproducing meat as my hon. Friends know their legislation would fine or imprison people who were over-producing coal—if we did that, of course we could get our effect without a subsidy. It is because we do not wish to impose upon the trade of this country and upon the producers
the sudden supply restrictions which would be necessary to bring us back to the position of 1931, that we are adopting this method of bridging the gap between the amount of supply restriction which would be necessary and the present level of prices. I put these considerations before my hon. and right hon. Friends opposite and particularly those who have argued with great strength and fervour the case that we are using the poor man's joint in order to subsidise the rich man's beefsteak. I ask them to remember that, all the way through, the difficulty in our modern life is to deal with the lower-grade product—which is not all consumed by one section of the community.
It is a mistake to think that all the cheaper classes of meat are bought by working-class people. Very large quantities of it are bought by the lower middle-class. Those who know where the meat from the livestock marts actually goes realise that it is very often to the working-class end of the town that the finest beef and the best joints go. The man who is working hard with his hands will pay a heavy price—or his wife will —for good meat. The housewife will no more starve a man of good meat than a man who was racing for his life would starve his horse of good corn. It is not true that the whole of the benefit of the reduction in the price of British beef, or lather, the benefit of avoiding the inevitable rise in the price of British beef which would have to take place if the cost of British beef production were to be borne by the price of British beef alone—it is not true that the whole of that benefit goes to the rich man and that the whole of the burden is borne by the poor man. I admit there is a strong case; my hon. Friends opposite fee] they are on very strong ground when they take the familiar attitude that this is an attack by the rich on the poor. It is not an argument which can be logically defended, but it is a strong argument, as an emotional argument, in this House, and I think they were right in getting off the point of reorganisation, to which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps) devoted a good deal of attention at the beginning of the Debate.
At the end of the day the reorganisation and rationalisation which would be
necessary to make a very great improvement in the price of British beef would be reflected either in the dismissal of great numbers of men or in the lowering of their wages. It is easy to talk about rationalisation, but at the end of the day rationalisation means that some man who is earning his pay is turned out of his job, that some man who is obtaining a portion of the economic results of industry which is higher than that to which he is entitled is cut down and the money which he is receiving goes somewhere else. This idea of getting everything we want by a process of reorganisation and rationalisation is not as simple as our scientific friends are apt to make out. We must remember that we are dealing with a glut of labour. There is a glut of labour as of other things, and the forcing of extra supplies on the market does not always have the effect that it did under 19th century Manchester economics. Unless these supplies can be absorbed we may easily do a certain amount of harm to put against the certain amount of good that is achieved. I ask my hon. Friends when they talk of reorganisation to reflect what that means in terms of employment, and I would ask hon. Members like the hon. Member for Aberdare and the hon. Member for Hemsworth when they say that our action is simply an attack upon the poor man's joint, to reflect how fatally easy it would be to turn the argument against them and to say that the whole of the measures taken to preserve the price of coal at what it was in 1931 were simply an attack by a specialised section, the miners, upon the cooking fires of the millions of housewives throughout the country.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdare brought up the point about the bacon agreement. He said that bacon is at a high price, and that this was a very bad thing; that the foreigner had been given more money and it was a great scandal. Why is the foreigner given more money? To enable him to buy British coal. My hon. Friends cannot be both genial internationalists and narrow and Gradgrind nationalists. They cannot at the same time say, "Let us all be brothers, let us give every man a chance, let us trade freely and profitably with other nations," and at the same time say, "You have made the bacon trade more profitable to the foreigners. What a shame!" They
get more money as a quill pro quo for buying more British coal.

Mr. G. HALL: May I point out that the coal trade, taking it as a whole—the export coal trade—has not benefited to any extent at all as a result?

Mr. ELLIOT: I will leave my hon. Friend to debate that with my hon. Friend the Secretary for Mines. I notice that he used the saving words "as a whole." I suppose he means that the North-East coast coalfield is one thing and the South Wales coalfield is another. He was saying just now, "Whatever you do about bacon, do not have any quota arrangement with the Argentine," though in another breath he said that was exactly the market to which he wishes to send coal from South Wales. The hon. Member cannot have it both ways. He cannot severely warn us in open Debate here that the effect of quota arrangements may be to give our foreign customers more money, and not expect that the foreigners who come to make trade 'agreements will not read with great care the wise and weighty words of my hon. Friend when he quotes those figures.

Mr. HALL: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he thinks it is a good thing for the miners to pay more for their meat and bacon in order to enable the Argentinian and Danish people to buy more coal from us?

Mr. ELLIOT: I may put that in this. way: Does the hon. Gentleman think that it is a good thing for the miners to pay so little for their meat and bacon that the Argentinians cannot afford to buy coal? How often have we heard that the bankruptcy of the primary producer is of no advantage to the secondary producer of this country. We are all willing to pay lip-service to these things, but when it comes down to actual argument and we see 6d. lying on the table, how great the temptation is to pounce upon it. The whole question of international trade is extremely complex and complicated. We are admittedly bringing forward in these proposals a compromise, and a compromise of a compromise. We are saying that the best arrangement will be a combination of levy and quota, and that, for the time being, we are willing to carry the levy ourselves, be-
cause we believe that that will cause less interference with the course of international trade as a whole.
I was surprised to hear the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland) say for the first time, speaking in the name of his party and winding up this Debate on Second Reading: "We commend the quota and only the quota to you. Do the whole of this by quota."

Sir F. ACLAND: I cannot quite admit that. I was referring quite specifically to the very special case of New Zealand who have entirely departed from the gentleman's agreement made at the time of Ottawa, and I think I was very specifically arguing that it is perfectly fair to ask them to restrict their supplies in consideration of the extraordinary way, by the help of a depreciated currency, in which they had increased them.

Mr. ELLIOT: That is to say, a nation which had accepted the terms of the agreement should be brought back rigidly to the terms of the quota. The nation that observed, and the nation which did not observe, the quota, should be brought back to the terms of the quota. If that is not my right hon. Friend's version, let us have it clearly. I will certainly now assume that that is not only his position but the position of the whole of his party, and that from now on it is on that assumption that we have to proceed. It is not fair to say that the levy is a proposal which merits immediate condemnation. Even so far as reorganisation is concerned,
an incentive
says my right hon. Friend, the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair),
is far better than safeguards.
The Bill calls out all that is best in the farmer. There is the greatest possible incentive in the Bill to progressive farmers to use up-to-date methods to reform their systems of farming, and to get the greatest amount of profits possible out of the Bill. The same thing applies to marketing. If they could reform that system if they have a producers' marketing board … there again, they will have a still greater advantage out of this Measure, and the 'whole of that time they will be putting their industry on a secure foundation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st March, 1932; col. 1077, Vol. 262.]
It is fair to use in this connection, but with greater strength and with more confidence, what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland in discussing a proposal on a previous occasion. He also said:
It is in the hope that this Bill will help to bridge the gulf and provide, at an imperceptible cost to the consumer, some encouragement and incentive to the farmers, that I commend it to the House to-night."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st March, 1932; col. 1078, Vol. 262.]
Those are the words in which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caithness and Sutherland, in the name of his party, commended a levy proposal. That was the wheat quota. There was no differentiation between one farmer and another, no differentiation in favour of one household as against another—[An HON. MEMBER "And no means test"]—and we had no means test. In all these things that Bill was far better than Safeguarding; it called out all that was best in the farmer. I do not know that I would go so far as that myself. I would say that this Bill appeals to the ordinary, average, middle-weight farmer, the man like ourselves, subject to imperfections; but I would not go so far as my enthusiastic Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland. But he was speaking in the name of his party, winding up for the Government on a Bill in connection with which he had commended levy proposals to the House, and he represented a united, or an almost united party, or at any rate a party in which all the leaders were united. He led them triumphantly into the Lobby in this Parliament, which was returned to support a National Government with a doctor's mandate applied in this fashion. I do not see my right hon. Friend in his place at this moment, but no doubt we shall have the powerful support of his vote in the Lobby, at any rate, if not at this stage, at some other stage of the Bill. But I do not think it lies in the mouth of any of those who advanced or supported those arguments to condemn us for bringing forward the levy proposals which we are now introducing to the House.
Taking the case on its broadest basis, surely we come back to the argument put forward by my hon. and right hon. Friends opposite. They say that we are beginning at the wrong end, that if the
purchasing power of the people were increased all these other things would come about. I admit that that is the main difficulty in which we are to-day. It is a problem which our system has not yet solved, but let it be remembered that the proposals of my hon4 and right hon. Friends opposite do not solve it any more than ours do, because their proposals for agriculture are based fundamentally upon import boards, and import boards on the lines of their proposals would in fact buy up foreign produce at a low price, and would use that money to bring up the price of British produce. That is exactly the same proposal, economically, which is put to them here, but in a different way, and I think it reflects great credit on my Noble Friend the Member for Rutland (Lord Willoughby de Eresby) that he detected that and put it to the House in a singularly cogent speech. We have not yet dealt with this question fully; we do not yet know how we can completely grapple with this question of increased purchasing power; but I think it is only fair to say that the Government can claim that they have not been unmindful of the problem. A greater number of men are now in employment than there were a year or two ago, and certain cuts have been restored. That must have the effect of increasing the purchasing power of the people. The hon. Member for East Fulham (Mr. Wilmot) complained with some bitterness that we were always flinging at them the fact that there are now 800,000 more men in jobs; and all that I could say in reply was that they never flung it at us.
I do not say that we have solved the problem of increased purchasing power. We know that the purchasing power is low; we know, as has been brought out in speech after speech throughout the House this evening, that the home market is assuming a greater and greater importance both in our thoughts and in our trade. What troubles us all—or rather, what demands the concentration of mind of us all—is how we can hold, maintain and increase the purchasing power of that home market without at the same time cutting too deeply into the export trades of this country, by which the great proportion of that home market is maintained. That is the dilemma which afflicts us all. But my hon. and right hon. Friends, and hon. Members below
the Gangway, have no reason to wrap themselves in their white mantles of righteousness, to make broad their phylacteries, and to claim that no one has ever thought about it except themselves. The fact that two and two make four is not an exclusive discovery of the Liberal party, and the fact that there is a certain desire to produce at home and a desire for trade overseas is one that must be brought home to the mind of a Minister of any Government and is not a fact confined merely to the adherents of one particular persuasion.

Mr. D. MASON: Why not do something?

Mr. ELLIOT: We all know, of course, the remedy of my hon. Friend: it is a return to the Gold Standard, and then all these things would immediately fade away. [An HON. MEMBER: "That is part of the remedy."] All I can say is that I did not notice that all these troubles disappeared when we were on the Gold Standard, which is apparently what the hon. Member requires. Secondly, we do not believe in these universal remedies which we can apply to any circumstance or situation however complicated. We must bear with our imperfections. My hon. Friend must therefore excuse me if I do not follow him all the way in his argument. But when he said, "Why not do something?" I was surprised, because I thought his complaint was that to-night in this Bill we were doing something. This is the well-known story of the mother who rang for the maid and said: "Mary, go upstairs and find out what baby is doing and tell him to stop." I am sure that my hon. Friend would not repeat that story on any occasion without adding, "And tell baby to return to the Gold Standard."
The problems that this House has to attack to-night are problems which it would be useless for us to think that we could solve in this Debate or even by this Bill. As I said when I warned the House, this is the beginning of a series of Debates, and I would go so far as to say that this is certainly not the last Bill that I expect to introduce on the subject. We have had more than one careful and thoughtful maiden speech. We had an excellent maiden speech from the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Orr-Ewing), who stressed the question of organisation, and we had a speech of
great interest from the hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Mr. Duckworth), who very boldly pointed out that we should have to reconsider our attitude to the whole of the agricultural system and to consider the position of the carbohydrate group, such as sugar-beet, in relation to other groups such as wheat and milk when we were going to the assistance of a particular branch of British agriculture —that we should look to the underpinning of the whole structure.
The arguments which the House has brought forward to-night are the arguments of those who desire to examine and keep open the whole position. I am sure that even my hon. Friends opposite have not put down the sort of Amendment which was once described by Mr. Wheatley as the "child o' their wrath."
This is a very mild Amendment. It would, of course, have the effect of killing the Bill if it were carried, but I am sure they would not desire that. They merely wish to impress upon us the necessity for organisation if we are to proceed along this course. They wish to impress upon us the necessity of seeing that this assistance that we are giving does not run into the sand somewhere between the producer and the consumer. They quite rightly point to the great difference that still exists between what the producer receives and what the consumer pays, and I certainly think there is a great deal of slack that might reasonably be taken in without any hardship falling upon the consumer, and I think a rise in prices to the primary producer can well be looked for without any unreasonable rise in prices to the housewife.
I have every hope that we shall be able to produce that result in this case, but it will take time, and it will mean that in certain instances we may have to put through restrictions in supply more

Division No. 340.]
AYES
[11.0 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Beaumont, Hon. R.E.B. (Portsm'th,C.)
Caporn, Arthur Cecil


Adams, Samuel Vyvyan T. (Leeds, W.)
Bower, Commander Robert Tatton
Castlereagh, Viscount


Albery, Irving James
Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd)
Braithwaite, J. G. (Hillsborough)
Chapman, Col.R. (Houghton-le-Spring)


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Brass, Captain Sir William
Chorlton, Alan Ernest Leofric


Apsley, Lord
Broadbent, Colonel John
Clayton, Sir Christopher


Aske, Sir Robert William
Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.


Astor, Maj. Hn. John J. (Kent, Dover)
Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C.(Berks., Newb'y)
Cook. Thomas A.


Astor, Viscountess (Plymouth, Sutton)
Browne, Captain A. C.
Cooke, Douglas


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Burgin, Dr. Edward Leslie
Courtauld, Major John Sewell


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Burnett. John George
Copeland, Ida


Beaumont, M. W. (Bucks., Aylesbury)
Butler, Richard Austen
Craven-Ellis, William

drastic than the restrictions in supply which we should apply if we were free to use the combined method of quota supply regulations and a levy to make up the difference. The report of the Committee on Agriculture of the Scottish National Development Council that was quoted suggested this as the method which they desired to follow, and it was backed up by Mr. Joseph Duncan, Secretary to the Farm Servants Union, and indeed was commended to the Labour movement of Scotland by a powerful article in "Forward," which no one could bring forward as a capitalist newspaper or a supporter of hon. Members on this side of the House. Opinion is in a fluid state upon this problem of agriculture, and in the Debates so far the House has approached the whole problem in a much more tentative manner than it has ever approached agricultural problems before.

We must expect the cogent and powerful arguments about raising the price of food which have been advanced by Members opposite and, unless we are prepared to face up to them and meet them, it would not be right for us to go forward with the policy that we are commending to the House. We must expect that arguments on purchasing power will be advanced by hon. Members below the Gangway, and, unless we are also able to meet that point, we shall not be able to proceed with our policy. But I say without hesitation that a case has been made out for action along the lines that we are commending, and it is as the result of these Debates, after listening most carefully to all the arguments advanced from the other side, that I move to ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 216;

Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
Ker, J. Campbell
Reid, David D. (County Down)


Crooke, J. Smedley
Kerr, Lieut.-Col. Charles (Montrose)
Rhys, Hon. Charles Arthur U.


Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Gainsb'ro)
Kimball, Lawrence
Rosbotham, Sir Thomas


Croom-Johnson, R. P.
Lamb, Sir Joseph Quinton
Ross, Ronald D.


Cruddas, Lieut.-Colonel Bernard
Lambert, Rt. Hon. George
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)


Dalkeith, Earl of
Law, Sir Alfred
Ruggles-Brise, Colonel E. A.


Davies, Maj.Geo. F. (Somerset,Yeovil)
Law, Richard K. (Hull, S.W.)
Runge, Norah Cecil


Dixey, Arthur C. N.
Leckie, J. A.
Russell, Albert (Kirkcaldy)


Dixon, Rt. Hon. Herbert
Lees-Jones, John
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Drummond-Wolff, H. M. C.
Leighton, Major B. E. P.
Russell, Hamer Field (Sheffield, B'tside)


Duckworth. George A. V.
Levy, Thomas
Rutherford, John (Edmonton)


Dugdale, Captain Thomas Lionel
Lindsay, Noel Ker
Salmon, Sir Isidore


Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)
Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip Cuntiffe-
Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart


Edmondson, Major Sir James
Lloyd, Geoffrey
Sanderson, Sir Frank Barnard


Elliot, Rt. Hon. Walter
Locker-Lampson,Rt. Hn. G. (Wd,Gr'n)
Shakespeare, Geoffrey H.


Ellis, Sir R. Geoffrey
Loder, Captain J. de Vete
Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)


Elilston, Captain George Sampson
Loftus, Pierce C.
Shaw, Captain William T. (Forfar)


Elmley, Viscount
Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.
Sheppereon, Sir Ernest W.


Essenhigh, Reginald Clare
Mabane, William
Simmonds, Oliver Edwin


Everard, W. Lindsay
MacAndrew, Lt.-Col. C. G. (Partick)
Skelton, Archibald Noel


Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst
Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)
Smiles, Lieut.-Col. Sir Walter D.


Ford, Sir Patrick J.
McLean, Major Sir Alan
Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)


Fox, Sir Gifford
McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradoston)
Smith, Sir J. Walker- (Barrow-In-F.)


Fraser, Captain Sir Ian
Macmillan, Maurice Harold
Smith, Sir Robert (Ab'd'n & K'dine,C.)


Fremantle, Sir Francis
Macqulsten, Frederick Alexander
Somervell, Sir Donald


Fuller, Captain A. G.
Maitland, Adam
Somerville, Annesley A. (Windsor)


Galbraith, James Francis Wallace
Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.
Spens, William Patrick


Ganzonl, Sir John
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fyide)


Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Marsden, Commander Arthur
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Oliver (W'morland)


Glossop, C. W. H.
 Mason, Col. Glyn K. (Croydon, N.)
Stevenson, James


Gluckstein, Louis Halle
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John
Stewart, J. H. (Fife, E.)


Glyn, Major Sir Ralph G. C.
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Storey, Samuel


Goldle, Noel B.
Milne, Charles
Strickland, Captain W. F.


Graham, Sir F. Fergus (C'mb'rl'd. N.)
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir Murray F.


Grimston, R. V.
Moore-Brabazon, Lteut.-Col. J. T. C.
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart


Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E.
Moreing, Adrian C.
Thomas, James P. L. (Hereford)


Guinness, Thomas L. E. B.
Morris, John Patrick (Salford, N.)
Thomas, Major L. B. (King's Norton)


Gunston, Captain D. W.
Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)
Thomson, Sir Frederick Charles


Guy, J. C. Morrison
Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univer'ties)
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Hales, Harold K.
Munro, Patrick
Todd, Capt. A. J. K. (B'wick-on-T.)


Hanbury, Cecil
Nation, Brigadier General J. J. H.
Touche, Gordon Cosmo


Hanley, Dennis A.
North. Edward T.
Tree, Ronald


Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)
Nunn, William
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.
O'Connor, Terence James
Tufnell, Lleut.-Commander R. L.


Heligers, Captain F. F. A.
O'Donovan, Dr. William James
Tartan, Robert Hugh


Herbert. Major. J. A. (Monmouth)
Orr Ewing, I. L.
Wallace, Captain D. E. (Hornsey)


Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller
Palmer, Francis Noel
Wallace, John (Dunfermline)


Hope, Capt. Hon. A. O. J. (Aston)
Patrick, Colin M.
Ward, LL-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Hors-Belisha, Leslie
Pearson, William G.
Ward, Irene Mary Bewlek (Wallsend)


Hornby, Frank
Petherick, M.
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)


Horobin. Ian M.
Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Warrender, Sir Victor A. G.


Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Peto, Geoffrey K. (W'verh'pt'n,Bilston)
Wells, Sydney Richard


Hudson, Robert Spear (Southport)
Potter, John
Whiteside, Borras Noel H.


Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)
Procter, Major Henry Adam
Williams, Herbert G. (Croydon, S.)


Hunter, Capt. M. J. (Brigg)
Radford, E. A.
Willoughby de Eresby, Lord


Hunter-We...on, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer
Rallies, Henry V. A. M.
Windsor-Cilve, Lieut.-Colonel George


Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas W. H.
Ramsay, Capt. A. H. M. (Midlothian)
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


James, Wing-Com. A. W. H.
Ramsay, T. B W. (Western Isles)
Wise, Alfred R.


Jamieson, Douglas
Ramebotham, Herwald



Jesson, Major Thomas E.
Ramsden, Sir Eugene
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton)
Reid, Capt. A. Cunningham-
Mr. Blindell and Commander Southby.




NOES.


Attlee, Clement Richard
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Maxton, James


Banfleld, John William
Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
mllner, Major James


Batey, Joseph
Harris, Sir Percy
Paling, Wilfred


Berneys, Robert
Janner, Barnett
Rathbone, Eleanor


Buchanan, George.
Jenkins, Sir William
Rea, Walter Russell


Grippe. Sir Stafford
John, William
Salter, Dr. Alfred


Dagger, George
Johnstone, Harcourt (S. Shields)
Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen)


Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Kirkwood, David
Smith, Tom (Normanton)


Dobbie, William
Lawson, John James
Thorne, William James


Foot, Dingle (Dundee)
Leonard, William
Tinker, John Joseph


Gardner, Benjamin Walter
Logan, David Gilbert
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur
McEntee, Valentine L.
Wilmot, John


Greaten, David Rees (Glamorgan)
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)



Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middiesbro', W.
Mallalleu, Edward Lancelot
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Griffiths, George A. (Yorks,W.Riding)
Mason, David M. (Edinburgh, E.)
Mr. Groves and Mr. G. Macdonald.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Monday next.—[Captain Margesson.]

WAYS AND MEANS.

Considered in Committee.

[Sir DENNIS HERBERT in the Chair.]

WHALING INDUSTRY (LICENCES).

Resolved,
That, under any Act of the present Sesion to enable effect to be given to a Convention for a Regulation of Whaling and to make provision for other matters, such fees as may be prescribed by the licensing authority under the said Act shall be charged in respect of the grant of licences authorising the use of ships and factories for taking and treating whales, being fees which do not exceed—

(a) two hundred pounds in the case of licences authorising the use of ships or factories for treating whales; or
(b) one hundred pounds in the case of licences authorising the use of ships for taking whales."—[Mr. Elliot.]

WHALING INDUSTRY (PAYMENT OF FEES AND FINES INTO EXCHEQUER).

Resolved,
That there shall be paid into the Exchequer—

(a) all fees received under any Act of the present Session to enable effect to be given to a Convention for the Regulation of Whaling and to make provision for other matters by the licensing authority under that Act or by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Fishery Board for Scotland or any other person acting under the authority of the Board of Trade; and
(b) all fines recovered by virtue of the said Act."—[Mr. Elliot.]

Resolutions to be reported upon Monday next.

Committee to sit again To-morrow.

WHALING INDUSTRY (REGULATION) [MONEY].

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 69.

[Sir DENNIS HERBERT in the Chair.]

Resolved,
That, for the purpose of any Act of the presnt Session to enable effect to be given to a Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, signed at Geneva on behalf of His Majesty on the twenty-fourth day of September, nineteen hundred and thirty-one, to prohibit the taking or treating of whales within the coastal waters of the United Kingdom, and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of the expenses incurred for the purposes of that Act
by the licensing authority thereunder or by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Fishery Board for Scotland or any other person acting under the authority of the Board of Trade (including sums required to pay the remuneration and expenses of whale fishery inspectors acting in pursuance of that Act.)"—(King's Recommendation signified.) —[Mr. Elliot.]

Resolution to be reported upon Monday next.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE (APPEALS) BILL [LORDS].

Not amended (in the Stand g Committee,) considered; read the Third time, and passed, without Amendment.

LAW REFORM (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) BILL [Lords].

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

CLAUSE 2.—(Amendment of Fatal Accidents Acts, 1846 to 1908.)

The SOLICITOR - GENERAL (Sir Donald Somervell): I beg to move, in page 3, line 36, to lave out Sub-section (3), and to insert:
(3) In an action brought under the Fatal Accidents Acts, 1846 to 1908, damages may be awarded in respect of the funeral expenses of the deceased person if such expenses have been incurred by the parties for whose benefit the action is brought.
This is a drafting Amendment. The Bill provides that funeral expenses may be recovered under Lord Campbell's Act. It is suggested by the hon. and gallant Member for Uxbridge (Lieut.-Colonel Llewellin) that the words which appear in the Bill might possibly be misconstrued, and we therefore propose to insert these words, which, I think, meet the point he raised and are more happily framed than those in the Bill.

Major MILNER: I think the Amendment is an improvement to the Bill. As I understand it, it makes it perfectly clear that the point on which some discussion took place on Second Reading is covered. That point was with regard to the question whether the parents of a child who was killed, for example, in a motor car accident could recover funeral expenses. At the present time the law is that such expenses cannot be recovered. Hon. Members will have known of cases of very great hardship
where poor people have lost their young children, and because there is no provision in the law enabling funeral expenses to be recovered in case of negligence those parents, who could ill afford it, have had to pay the funeral expenses or the child has had to be buried at the public expense. I understand that the Solicitor-General has satisfied himself that the defect in the present law will be covered by this Bill and that the Amendment will make that fact clear.

Amendment agreed to.

SOLICITORS BILL (Lords).

As amended (in the Standing Committee) considered; read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

ELECTRICITY (SUPPLY) ACTS.

Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply),Acts, 1882 to 1933, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the compulsory acquisition of easements or other rights for overhead main transmission lines in and over certain lands situate at Eastwood, in the county borough of Southend-on-Sea, Which was presented on the 21st day of June, 1934, be approved.
Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1933, and 3onfirmed by the Minister !of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, and the Public Works Facilities Act, 1930, in respect of parts of the rural districts of: Marshland Downham and Freebridge Lynn, all in the county of Norfolk, which was presented on the 21st day of June, 1934, be approved.
Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1933, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the urban district of New-market, in the administrative county of
West Suffolk, which was presented on the 27th day of June, 1934, be approved.
Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1933, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, and the Public Works Facilities Act, 1930, in respect of part of the urban 'district of Milford Haven and part of the rural district of Haverfordwest, in the county of Pembroke, which was presented on the 27th day of June, 1934, be approved.
Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1933, as extended by the Statutory Gas Companies (Electricity Supply Powers) Act, 1925, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, to provide for the supply of electricity in parts of the rural districts of Basingstoke, Hartley Wintney, and 'Winchester, in the county of Southampton, and for other purposes, which was presented on the 27th day of June, 1934, be approved.
Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1933, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the parish of Ashton-upon-Mersey, in the urban district of Sale, in the county of Chester, which was presented on the 28th day of June, 1934, be approyed."— [Mr. Hare-Belisha.]

GAS UNDERTAKINGS ACTS, 1920 AND 1929.

Resolved,
That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under the Gas Undertakings Acts, 1920 and 1929, on the application of the urban district council of Selby, which was presented on the 12th day of June and published, be approved."—[Dr. Burgin.]

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

ADJOURNMENT.

Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain Margesson.]

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty Minutes after Eleven o'Clock.